


The Valley of the Shadow

by FabulaRasa



Category: DCU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-07 02:47:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 51,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce is diagnosed with a serious illness, and Clark must watch helplessly. A multi-chapter work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Talking to Clark

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, fandom, there will be plenty of angst in this one, and giant steaming helpings of hurt/comfort. I’m also going to ask you to trust me, on this particular journey, that I won’t lead you to any place so dark I can’t take you back again. It’s true, I don’t warn for content, but I don’t read unredeemably dark stories, and I sure as hell don’t write them. So trust me, dear ones.

Clark jerked from sleep, but noiselessly. There was a dark figure sitting in the chair by the window. 

"For heaven's sake," he said. "Some people text."

Bruce didn't smile. And it was Bruce, not Batman, which was. . . vaguely alarming. Bruce wasn't above breaking into Clark's apartment when he deemed it necessary; no doors were closed to the Bat, in Gotham or Metropolis. But Clark had never seen him pull that stunt while dressed like Bruce Wayne. There he sat, in turtleneck and tweed jacket and Italian shoes, calmly by the window. 

"How did you get in?"

Bruce arched a brow at that, and held up his key. It glinted in the moonlight. Clark sat up and stared back at him. Was it one of those nights, then? Wordlessly he flipped back part of the covers, keeping his eyes on Bruce's. Bruce made a small odd motion—a twitch, almost—and turned his head away. Clark was silent. There was never any telling, with Bruce. It was never talked about, after. 

Instead, Bruce leaned forward and tossed a manila folder on the bed. Clark flicked on the bedside light and looked at it. "What's this?"

"I thought you might be interested to know, I've solved my parents' murder."

"You. . . you're kidding." Clark ran a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. The bedside clock said 2:27. He wondered how long Bruce had been sitting there, waiting for him to wake up, and what small noise he had finally made to rouse him. He opened the folder and tried to focus on the papers inside.

On top was a police report, which Clark had in fact seen before. It was from the night Bruce's parents had died, and it contained all the details he already knew: the mugging gone wrong, the shots fired, the two dead bodies in the alley, the lone surviving boy. Description of the gunman pieced together from the interview with eight-year-old Bruce. 

"Okay," Clark said slowly. "I've read the police report. Is there something I should be looking at?"

"Keep reading." Bruce was standing by the window now, looking out with his hands in his pockets. 

The papers underneath the police report appeared to be medical records. They were stamped _Gotham General_ at the top, but they were carbon copies, extremely faint. No originals. The name of the patient was hard to decipher, even, but it might have been. . . he looked up. "These are your father's."

"Correct." 

Clark returned to the records, trying to make head or tail out of what he was looking at. The "Thomas S. Wayne" at the top of the third page was clearer, and easier to read. There was a white sheet stapled to the yellow sheets that appeared to be lab results, but the numbers and abbreviations meant nothing to him. "I'm assuming you know what all this means?"

"I do."

"And the information here helps solve their murder, somehow?"

"That's the answer to the mystery. It wasn't a murder. I was asking the wrong question, all these years."

"It wasn't a murder?" Clark flipped to the back of the police report and caught a glimpse of the crime scene photograph, the splayed and bloody bodies. "Bruce. . . if you're saying they're somehow still alive. . ."

"I'm not saying that. I am saying, only one of the people in that photograph was murdered."

Clark stared at him, narrowing his eyes. It wasn't just that he had been awakened from a sound sleep; Bruce was being especially cryptic tonight. "Bruce, what are you. . ."

"The medical records. Look at them, they'll tell you everything you need to know."

Clark flipped through them. "I don't know how to interpret them."

"I know that. If you could read them, they would tell you a very interesting story. A story about a young man with everything: incredible wealth, a glamorous and loving wife, a brilliant career, a son to carry on his legacy. There was only one thing he didn't have, and that was long to live."

Clark looked up. Bruce had turned from the window and was staring back at him, gimlet-eyed. "My father had been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, six weeks before that night in the alley. Look at the dates."

"Leukemia," Clark repeated, slowly. "Was it terminal?"

"AML most frequently is. It's aggressive, it's fast-moving, it's extremely difficult to treat. Difficult enough today, but thirty-some years ago close to impossible. He would have known the truth of it, known that he had very few options."

He began to piece together what Bruce was implying. No, that couldn't be right. "Bruce. . . even if he knew all this. . ."

"He knew it. He had suspected something was wrong, I would imagine for some months before his eventual diagnosis. The name on those records is that of a colleague of his, an oncologist friend at the hospital. He was a very kind, very decent old man who remembered his friend Thomas well. He no longer had originals of any of his records, but he did locate those for me. He told me my father was determined no one should know. When he died, his friend chose not to violate that wish."

Clark flipped to the last paper in the file. It was another medical record, but a close-to-the top carbon copy this time, and more legible. Instead of lab results, it appeared to be a hastily-written emergency room record. _Patient presented with surface GSW. . . minor stitching. . . result of altercation. . ._

In the blank for name, someone had written _patient gives name as 'Joe Chill.'_ The initials at the bottom of the chart were scrawled, but legible: TSW.

Clark looked up to find Bruce watching him. "You're suggesting. . ."

"You know what I'm suggesting. And I'm not suggesting it, I'm saying it. My father met Joe Chill one week before that night in the alley. He didn't work emergency rotation frequently, but he would do it if someone needed him to fill in, if a friend asked him to. He happened to be there the night Joe Chill came in—obviously a thug, obviously wounded while carrying out some criminal activity or other. A man familiar with guns, with violence. Who knows what their conversation was that night?"

Clark closed the folder. "Nobody, that's who. You don't know what it was. You can't leap to the conclusion that—"

"I'm not leaping to anything. I'm connecting the dots: one thing to another thing to a third thing. Three circumstances, by themselves innocent, unconnected to anything else. Hook them up, and the picture is rather different. Join any two, and you won't be left with anything more than coincidence. What could it possibly mean, other than the worst sort of irony, that my father treated Joe Chill for gunshot wounds a week before Joe Chill mowed him down in an alley? But join those facts with the third fact of his medical situation, and things begin to look different."

"I can't believe what you're saying," Clark said. "You think—you honestly think—your father hired Joe Chill to murder him and your mother that night."

"I don't think that, no. I think he hired Chill to kill him. I think my mother's death was a mistake, an accident, never part of the plan. Something went wrong that night. Probably he had instructed Chill to do it someplace away from his family, some lonely night walking to the parking lot at Gotham General, perhaps. My father was naive enough to believe criminals could be trusted to keep their word. But why pass up the opportunity to make a little extra by fleecing the wife of her jewelry?"

Clark opened the folder again and spread the three documents out on the blanket. Police report, medical records, emergency room record. He tried to arrange them in his head in some other interpretation than the one Bruce had given them, and failed. He glanced at Bruce, who had sat back down in the chair, legs crossed. "When did you figure all this this out?" he asked.

"I discovered the truth of my father's medical history a month ago. But the last piece of it fell into place when I went through my father's old files, day before yesterday. That's where I found the copy of Joe Chill's emergency room admit. All of those files are still in boxes in the attic, carefully labeled by date. Once I suspected what I was looking for, it wasn't that hard to find."

Clark flipped to the photograph again. Thomas and Martha Wayne were about his own age, maybe a little younger. He tried to imagine being an eight year old in that cacophony of blood and noise, that long-ago night. "He was a coward," Bruce was saying, but matter-of-factly. "He was facing a painful death, and he sought another way. As a doctor he would have known exactly what hand he had been dealt, and he wanted to change it."

"That doesn't make him a coward."

"Doesn't it? If he had accepted what fate had given him, he would have lived maybe another six months. His son might have had time to prepare for what was going to happen. His father's death might have become a sad thing that happened to him once, instead of a trauma that continued to define him his life long. And of course, he would have had his mother to help him through it. But Thomas Wayne wasn't thinking about that. He wasn't thinking about anyone else, in the final weeks of his life."

Clark was silent, because there was no answer to that. He kept looking at the image of Martha Wayne, twisted face down in her own blood. Joe Chill's shot had caught her in the head, blown the back of her skull off. Clark tried to imagine being eight, and seeing his mother's brains spill out the back of her head. He realized Bruce was looking at him look at the photo, and had seen where he was staring. 

"You know what else I found, a few months ago? Didn't think anything of it at the time. I found my mother's old rosary, in a drawer in her little office."

"I thought your parents were Episcopalian," Clark said, flipping back to the medical records and covering the photo.

"Of course they were. But she was a Van Der Line before she was a Wayne. The Van Der Lines were Anglo-Catholic, all of them—Episcopalians of the incense and holy water variety. There's a line in one of the old prayers: _from a sudden and unprepared death, good Lord, deliver us_. The idea being that you should have time to prepare, to make your peace with God, to say good-bye to your loved ones. She would have known that prayer, said it. That was what my father gave her, a sudden and unprepared death. Turns out the only thing she should have prayed to be delivered from, was ever meeting Thomas Wayne."

Clark steepled his fingers, sitting there cross-legged on his bed, studying the documents. He arranged them like the three points of a triangle, then re-arranged them. The narrative as Bruce told it was compelling: diagnosis, encounter with Joe Chill, fateful night in the alley. Bruce had wandered back to the window as he read, then paced back over to the bed, standing over him. He was standing a fraction of an inch closer than Bruce normally stood, and Clark's mind flicked back to his earlier, wordless question of the night, and Bruce's odd gesture of refusal. 

"None of this answers the central question," Clark said after a bit.

"Oh?"

"All of this—" he swept a hand over the documents— "depends on your discovery of your father's diagnosis. What made you go looking through his medical history in the first place?"

"Yes. I was wondering when the investigative reporter was going to ask that."

"My instincts are a little keener when it's not two in the morning. Are you going to tell me?"

Bruce was back at the window, looking out. "Yes," he said. "I am. But I'm betting you can guess already."

Bruce turned to look at him, and Clark shook his head, not because Bruce was wrong but because he wanted his guess to be wrong, to be the wrongest he had ever been. "Four weeks ago, I was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. It's strongly hereditary. So I went looking."

There was a valve that had sucked all the air out of the room, that had collapsed the molecular density of every object in it. Clark looked only at Bruce and kept everything off his face. "All right," he said steadily. "Tell me."

"Nothing much to tell. AML moves fast. I have to make a decision by the end of the week, whether I want to pursue chemo or not. But that won't alter the outcome, just delay it slightly."

"Who knows?"

Bruce for some reason was silent, like that was the hardest question he had been asked tonight. Like talking about his father's suicide and his mother's botched murder had been easy, but this was the tough one. "You," he said. Clark shut his eyes, just briefly, and thought of the last four weeks, and Bruce carrying this around inside.

"I'll tell Alfred and the boys in the next few days."

"Please sit down," Clark said, and he did, on the edge of the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired, mainly. I am. . . tired. That's why I went to Leslie. I was tired and couldn't find out why. I had already run every test I knew to run. Leslie knew others."

Bruce was sitting four feet away, but it might as well have been forty. Clark knew better than to reach for him. "I have a favor to ask," Bruce said. "When I tell them. Will you—" He stopped.

"I'll be there," Clark said. "Of course I will."

"I expect Alfred will be angry, that I haven't told him."

"Part of him will be angry."

"I started with you because I knew you wouldn't be."

"No. I'm not angry."

"It's Alfred's grief," Bruce said. "That's what I'm not sure I can face."

"I know."

"They'll expect me to comfort them. I'll have to comfort them."

"That's certainly possible," Clark acknowledged.

"Thank you for not. . . making me do that."

Still Clark did not reach for him. "Why don't you lie down," he said. "Just rest, before you go back home."

For a second—half a second, really—he thought Bruce might say yes. There was a corner of his face that looked like it wanted to say yes. And then he rose. "I need to get back," he said. 

Clark gathered the documents, put them back in the folder. "What will you tell Leslie?"

"You mean, have I decided what I'm going to do? No, I haven't. The only thing I know is that I'm not going to try the end run my father did. I'm not going to cheat. I'm not going to flinch."

"All right," Clark said again. 

"Will you help me do it?"

"Do what?"

"Die," Bruce said, and the thing clawing Clark's chest shattered the wall of his ribcage and exploded his internal organs, tore him in bloody strips and shredded him. 

"Yes," was all he said. 

Bruce walked out then, moving as soundlessly as the Bat. Clark heard his front door click, but no one with human hearing would have. He waited until he heard Bruce's car start the next block over before he balled his fists in the sheets and yelled.


	2. Talking to the Family

He didn't go back to sleep that night, of course. Or the next one, for that matter. He spent most of his time researching everything he could find on acute myelogenous leukemia: its causes, its possible treatment, its likely course. Early symptoms included fatigue, fever, weight loss — general influenza-like feelings. Bruce might have thought he had a virus he couldn't shake. He imagined Bruce running a few tests in his lab, just to check his blood count, his vitamin levels. 

Easy bruising or bleeding, he might very well be in that stage now. He wondered when was the last time Bruce had been on patrol. He wondered when was the last time Bruce had suited up and Batman had soared over Gotham, and he pushed down the realization that Batman— _the_ Batman, the only Batman there would ever be, for his money—had suited up for the last time. 

He called in sick and sat at his computer for eleven hours at a stretch, researching, studying. And finally he called Dr. Thompkins, because Bruce hadn't said he couldn't. She wouldn't tell him anything, of course, wouldn't violate confidentiality like that. But it had been worth a shot. So he put questions to her as hypotheticals, as general knowledge type questions: if one were diagnosed with AML, what would be the potential benefits of chemotherapy? What would be the disadvantages? What were the odds that chemo could delay the disease's progress? And always, in the back of his questions, in the back of all his web searches: what were the chances of a cure?

Three days after that night in Clark's apartment, Bruce gathered the family. Alfred was there, and Dick, and Tim, and Damian, all gathered in the downstairs formal parlor — a giant cavern of a room, with a fireplace you could have parked his whole apartment inside. Clark didn't recall ever being in the room before. It was so huge eye contact was almost difficult across its vast spaces, and Clark wondered if that was the point. He also wondered if Bruce had tried to contact Jason and been rebuffed. Jason would have to know, sooner or later. Clark sat in a chair away from the rest of them and listened to Bruce's calm, measured voice. Not the words, really; just the pattern of his voice. Dick's voice arguing, protesting. Tim's deathly silence. And then there was Damian.

"I refuse to accept this," he announced. 

"Refusing reality does no good," Bruce said curtly. Clark shifted, but leaping in right now would be the worst possible thing; Damian had already cast him more than a few hostile glances. 

" _You're_ the one who's not accepting reality," Damian retorted. "There's no reason for you to die of some stupid disease like this. Not when my grandfather can cure you immediately. You're just being stubborn."

"Damian. You know all the reasons that's not an option. I won't discuss that."

"Then you should accept the reality that you're dying because you're stubborn. Because you _want_ to die."

"Damian," Dick said, and Clark rose. Damian looked at him. 

"And what's the alien doing here anyway? What's any of this got to do with him?"

"That's enough," Dick said. 

"You're all out of your minds if you think it's rational to just accept death without fighting. Why aren't you _fighting_? Are you even going to fight at all?"

"Stop it, Damian," Dick said, but Clark caught the way they all glanced at Bruce, and knew it was the question they all wanted to ask. Only the little sharp-faced termagant standing defiantly in the middle of the room had been bold enough to ask it. 

"Chemotherapy with this particular cancer is problematic," Bruce said. He was talking to Damian as though Damian was politely asking for clarification. "The dosage necessary to slow its progress is high enough to cause significant difficulty for the patient. The point is, I don't feel like spending my last few months of life in misery, for eight more weeks of life, or nine, or ten."

"So you _do_ want to die."

"Shut up, you little shit," snarled Tim.

"Tim," said Bruce, and for the first time Clark heard it in his voice, heard the exhaustion, heard how tired he was. He moved a bit closer to the family grouping around the fireplace. Alfred stood on the perimeter as well. Clark couldn't look at his face. 

"Coward!" Damian shouted. "You're a coward, is what you are."

"Damian, when you've matured a little bit, you will—"

"If you choose to abandon your duty, I will never forgive you," Damian spat. "Only a coward would choose death over duty." 

And he pushed past Bruce, stomping out of the room. Tim was curled on an arm of the sofa, crossed arms hugging his middle, shaking his head like he was willing this not to be true. Dick was pacing in front of the fire, looking ready to hit something; Alfred was rubbing at his forehead. Only Bruce was a point of stillness in this room clogged with a miasma of grief and confusion. Confusion, mainly, because how could this be happening to Bruce, to Batman? Things like this didn't happen to Batman. 

"I don't understand," Dick said. 

"What don't you understand?"

"You," he said. "How can you be so, so. . ."

Bruce put his hands in his pockets. "What do you want me to do, Dick? Would you feel better if I were crying, yelling, throwing a tantrum like Damian? Maybe I should hurl myself on the Isfahan rug and sob? I'd be happy to do all those things, if it bought me one more week of life. But since it won't, I'd prefer not to waste what time I have left in useless emotion."

"Damian is terrified," Dick said. "He's lost Talia, and he's lost the life he had growing up, and now he's losing you. He doesn't know what the hell's going to happen to him."

"I know that. I was hoping you and I could have a conversation about that, some time soon. I'd like you to begin official proceedings to adopt Damian."

Dick wiped at his forehead, leaned on the mantel. "I talk in emotions, and you answer in legal documents. What else is new. Jesus Christ."

"Master Richard," Alfred said. 

"Let him say what he wants, he's not wrong," Bruce said. Clark saw his eyes drift to Tim, was still curled around his abdomen like he was protecting a mortal wound. "Tim," he began.

He huffed a pained laugh. "I'm a little too old for Dick to adopt."

"Not too old for me to kick your ass, though, when it needs it," Dick said.

"You're the one being the asshole here, not me."

"That's probably true. Look, Bruce. . . I'm sorry. None of us knows what the hell to do here. You just walked in and exploded the floor underneath us."

"I've been gone before," Bruce observed. "Your lives went on."

"Yeah. Yeah, that was. . . great." Clark saw Dick's eyes rest on Tim. "So basically what you're saying is, this will be just like the most hellish time in our lives, only this time it won't ever end."

"Possibly. I'm not saying anything. The only thing I'm saying is that I'm dying. Do with that information what you will."

"Christ Almighty," Dick said, and he too walked out. 

"Would you care for some tea, sir?" It was the first sentence Alfred had said, and Bruce looked at him. They looked at each other, actually, and Clark couldn't read what passed between them. 

"Thank you, Alfred, tea would be good. Though coffee might be better." Alfred left without another word. Tim looked up when Alfred left.

"You know what I think about Damian's opinions, most of the time," he said. 

"I do."

"But in this case, I think he has a point. Are you seriously telling us you're not going to do any chemo, not going to try at all?"

"I haven't said that. I said I haven't decided. There are lots of variables to consider. I've said I will make my decision when I—"

"Have you thought that maybe this decision involves more than just you?"

"I have been trying to take into consideration everyone's—"

"Bullshit. You'll do what you always do, which is decide what works for you and leave the rest of us to deal with it as best we can. I'm just not sure I can do this again." And he too was off, heading out the side door to the stairwell. Bruce watched him go.

"Three for three," he said. "That went well."

"They'll come around," Clark said. "They're just stunned. They're used to thinking about loss in terms of violence—a gun, a knife, a bomb, a team of assassins in the night. They didn't see this coming. They were blindsided."

"I don't doubt that's true. You were very helpful though. I especially liked the part where you said absolutely nothing."

"I don't think that would have gone over very well, if I'd spoken up. Damian's regard for my opinion isn't what you would call high."

Bruce was leaning on the back of a chair. He didn't think he'd ever seen Bruce lean on the back of a chair before. On anything, for that matter. "I need to go talk to Alfred," he said.

"He took it well, anyway," Clark said. Bruce snorted.

"That's because you don't know Alfred. 'Would you care for some tea' means 'how would you feel about me shoving the teapot up your unlubricated ass while using the sugar tongs to remove your balls.'"

Clark winced. "I just thought he was offering you tea."

"You really don't know the English, do you?"

Clark dared a hand on his back. It was the first time he'd touched Bruce since he had learned what was happening three days ago. Not an hour he hadn't thought about it; not a minute he hadn't wanted to drop whatever he was doing and pull Bruce into his arms. That wouldn't have been allowed, and wouldn't have helped Bruce, anyway. It would have helped him, but this was about doing what Bruce needed. So he just let his hand rest on Bruce's back, a little below his shoulder.

Bruce shrugged off the hand—flinched from it, more like. "I need to talk to Alfred," was all he said. "Damian too."

"It can wait. You should rest now."

"Should I?" It was a minute before Clark realized the question wasn't sarcasm. Bruce was looking at him and asking what he should do, because he didn't know. Bruce didn't know what to do. 

"Yes," he said. "If you want, I can wake you in an hour."

"All right." Bruce headed out the same door Tim had gone, toward the back stairs. His rooms were on the third floor. Through the doorway, Clark could see him mount the first few steps, pause. 

"Bruce." He was beside him in an instant. "Please let me." And he offered his arms. Bruce looked neither appalled nor offended, but not inclined to accept, either.

"I'm fine," he said. Not sharply. His expression was absent, like he was thinking about something else. Clark stood at the bottom of the stairs and watched Bruce's slow progress. When he heard the door at the third floor landing open, he went back to the fireplace and sat in front of it. He was unsurprised to find Dick there, waiting for him. Or maybe not waiting for him, but sitting there, elbows on his knees, hunched forward like he was lost in thought.

"I'll talk to Damian," he said to Clark. "I'm probably the only one he'll listen to right now. And someone will need to tell Jason."

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

"I fucked that up but good," Dick said. "I'll get better at it, I promise. How is he?"

"Tired."

Dick nodded. "I'll take some leave from the PD so I can be here when he needs me. He didn't. . . give us any specifics, I noticed. About. . . his prognosis, I mean."

"You mean, how long he has."

"Do you know?"

Clark nodded. "Three months, give or take, without chemo. Six, if he does the chemo, though both of those are estimates."

Dick made a choking sound. "Jesus Christ," he said, and he was up and holding onto the mantel, bracing on it. Clark could see the shaking of his arms. "How are you holding it together," he said, in a hoarse voice.

Clark shook his head. "I don't know. On autopilot, I guess. This is what Bruce needs from me, right now."

Dick was watching him, from underneath his arm. "Clark. Can I ask you a question about your relationship with Bruce I've never asked you?"

"No," he said. 

"Okay. Is that no as in, the answer to your question is no? Or no as in—"

"Please stop."

"Sorry. I just. . . Bruce is going to need. . ."

"I'm going to take a leave of absence from work for a while. For as long as I need to. Maybe cut back on hours, I don't know. Anyway. I'll be here. I know your situation with the force isn't one you can walk away from quite as easily, so I don't want you to have to feel like it's all on you."

"I didn't feel that way."

"I'm afraid Damian may be all on you, however. He'll listen to you. Maybe you can bring him to some sense of. . ." He had no idea what noun he was heading for. _Closure_ was beyond laughable, as well as hypocritical. "Acceptance," he said. 

"I'll try. But he'll come around on his own, sooner or later. He's not who I worry about, to be honest."

They were quiet, and Clark saw Dick study the arm of the sofa where Tim had been sitting. He would have to trust Dick's judgment on how best to deal with Tim. In many ways, Tim was a closed book to him, the most introverted and peculiar of Bruce's peculiar family. 

"We'll figure something out," Clark said at last. 

"He's lucky to have you, Clark. Sincerely. In whatever way that is. He's lucky, I mean that."

It was funny what a wild stab of anger that gave him, the boy's assumption—and Dick would always be a boy to him, for all that he was a man grown now—that Bruce was the one who benefited most from their friendship. Or maybe it was the obscenity of anyone ascribing luck to Bruce. 

"We've all been lucky to have him," he said. They were quiet, and watched the fire together, for a long time after that. Alfred came in with a tea tray and three cups, and the three of them drank in silence: a quiet confederacy of grief.

* * *

He stayed at the Manor that night, because he talked into the wee hours with Alfred. He had always had a weird sense—and maybe it was crazy—that Alfred didn't much like him. Maybe it was just that Clark couldn't read him; maybe Bruce was right, and he really didn't know the English. But after a few hours in that kitchen, in low earnest conversation with Alfred about things neither one of them ever wanted to have to talk about, he would have to say that no, his initial assumption was correct: Alfred didn't much like him.

It didn't keep them from talking about what they needed to talk about, though. How they would spend the next few months, who would do what, how they would help the boys. At two in the morning, when Alfred offered him a bedroom, he accepted. It wasn't one he'd slept in before. This one was a second-floor guest room, almost as cavernous as the downstairs parlor. Alfred offered to start a fire, but Clark declined. Instead he sat in one of the wing chairs by the empty fireplace and thought. He never had wakened Bruce like he said he would; Bruce needed his rest more than he needed to take another swing at talking to his family. 

After two sleepless hours, he decided to check on Bruce, just to make sure he was all right. It would irritate Bruce, but he need never know. He found the master suite empty, the blankets a tangled mess. He wasn't that surprised; he knew Bruce was a fitful sleeper at the best of times, and this wasn't the best of times. 

_You could sleep here, you know._

_Not a good idea._

_And why's that?_

_Tell me, Clark, is pretending to be an idiot so second-nature to you now that you'll do it even in bed?_

He found him, finally, on the roof. The cave had been empty and dark, and he had quickly scanned for any sign of life and found none beyond the bats in the dark stony reaches of the caverns. And then some instinct had told him where to look, and he hadn't needed to rely on his powers to show him, though he did rely on them to fly him up to Bruce's perch, on the gable of the south-west wing. He alighted gently beside him, and Bruce said nothing. 

"I'm not the climber you are," Clark said. "I had to cheat to get here." They sat in silence for a bit, and Clark wondered if he should encourage Bruce to go in. The night was chilly, and Bruce was wearing a thin shirt. He could see the gooseflesh on Bruce's arms. He had opened his mouth to speak when Bruce shifted.

"I used to get in trouble," he said, "when I was little, for climbing up here."

"It's. . . pretty high up. I think I'd have tanned your hide too."

"By 'trouble' I mean my father looked displeased."

"How dreadful for you."

Bruce gave him a narrow look. "Sometimes," he remarked, "I am almost sure you're making fun of me."

"I would never. Aren't you getting cold?"

"Yes," Bruce said absently. "But I needed to think."

"About what you're going to tell Leslie tomorrow?"

"Yes." 

Clark thought of the text message on his phone, from earlier today. _Tell Bruce he has to make a decision by tomorrow. Our window is closing_. He knew what she meant: the window of time in which the radiation and chemo could delay the cancer's progress was closing rapidly. He was already four weeks and three days post-diagnosis, and every hour mattered. Clark took a deep, shuddering breath and steeled himself. 

"You haven't offered your opinion," Bruce pointed out.

"It's not my decision to make."

Bruce was looking at him. "You understand what treatment would mean. What life it bought me would be spent hunched over a toilet, most probably. I'd be weaker than the leukemia would make me. The sores in my mouth would make it impossible to eat, even if my body could keep anything down. I'd likely end unable to walk, control my bladder, or roll on my side without bruising. It's a miserable fate for anyone, and no way to end your life."

"I know," Clark said, and he did. It was the first thing he'd read, and he'd done all his grim homework. 

"If I decided to forego treatment, I would have less life available, but it would be actual livable life. Leukemia is not such a bad way to go. There would be fatigue, but it would be more like a bad case of the flu. Fever and chills would be about the worst of it. There would be bone and joint pain, but there are painkillers that can control that. Drugs can control most of the symptoms, actually. All in all, there are worse ways to die."

"There certainly are."

"I should know, I've dodged several of them. Lucky me." He rose, lightly as ever. "You're right, it is cold."

"Have you decided?"

"Yes."

"May I. . . will you tell me what you've decided?"

Bruce was looking at him again. "Door number one gives me a peaceful, relatively painless, dignified way to end my life. Door number two gives me misery, pain, humiliation and the same death, just delayed."

Clark licked his lips. "There is a door number three. There is a possibility. . . I know the odds are not good, but a remission is not impossible in AML, with strong enough chemo. . ."

"The level of chemo necessary to induce remission in AML would be close to enough to kill me. Certainly enough to make me unconscious most of the time. There isn't any point in fighting like that."

"I know," Clark said, and he did. They stood in silence, surveying the darkened grounds below, the sweep of lawn. "So what's your decision?"

Bruce squinted, like he was trying to see into the dark—out beyond the lawns, beyond the woods, all the way to the bay and the ocean beyond that. "I fight," he said simply. "Fuck the odds." 

Part of Clark's lungs that had been clenching air for three days released. "You're kidding," he said. He tried to keep the stupid grin off his face, and couldn't.

"Oh yes, it's going to be fun times. You're pleased?"

"Yes. I am. Yes."

"You didn't try to persuade me."

"Since when has that ever worked?"

"Good point." Bruce shivered, rubbed at his arms. "It's thirty degrees. This was not one of my better decisions."

"Don't you normally brood in your cave?"

"The problem with a good brooding place is that eventually, other people know where to find you." Bruce glanced over the edge. "I think getting down was easier when I was seven."

"Well. You did get up here. That reminds me of the time I was worried about a cat in the neighbor's tree and wanted to go get it, and Ma said I didn't need to worry about cats in trees. She said, ever see a cat skeleton in a tree?"

"We're going to work on your repertoire of comforting stories." 

Bruce leaped for the gutter flashing, as powerful and graceful in his pajamas as the Batsuit. He arced to a handhold in the stone only he could see, and swung himself through the window casement. It was funny—he'd always thought of Bruce's agility as the fruit of his training, but the story about climbing up here when he was young made Clark wonder if he'd always been this preternaturally lithe. He smiled to think of young Bruce, scrambling up ladders and teetering on rooftops, terrifying his parents. 

It was his first smile in three days and eleven hours, and nothing had ever felt better.


	3. Talking to Alfred

Clark slumped outside the bathroom door and put his head in his hands. "Please let me help you," he said through the door.

"I'm fine," came the hoarse reply, and then more endless retching. He waited for this round to subside, and waited through the silence after. 

"Bruce?" He waited another three minutes, and when there was still no answer, he toed open the bathroom door.

Bruce was stretched on the cool tile floor, limp. "Hey hey, okay, I gotcha," Clark murmured, getting his arms underneath Bruce and lifting him. 

"Just let me stay," Bruce whispered. "No point in going far."

"You're not going to sleep on the bathroom floor. You can hurl in a bowl, you don't need to sleep by the toilet."

"Put me down." Bruce's head lolled against his shoulder.

"You bet, I'm putting you down right here in this nice soft bed. Here you go. Okay, let's get you covered up. You need to keep a shirt on, you're going to get cold."

Bruce shook his head. "Was hot." 

His eyes were closed, and Clark wasn't sure how conscious he was. The sweats had begun; his forehead was sheened, and his chest was already damp and clammy. The chills weren't that far away, and Clark pulled the big comforter up, ready to hand. Bruce's eyes flew open.

"You're going to be late for work."

"I—Bruce, it's ten o'clock at night. I'm not going to work. Lie down."

He licked his lips. "Cold," he managed.

"I know."

"Need. . . shirt."

"It would just get drenched in the sweats, and make you colder. Let's just get you warmed in the blankets, all right?"

"'Kay. Is Alfred mad at me?"

"What? Why would Alfred be mad at you? Nobody's mad at you."

"I was in the kitchens. . . all day. I looked for him. Couldn't. . . find him."

Clark's hand rested uncertainly on the blanket. It had never happened before that Bruce had slipped into another reality entirely, but it wasn't that surprising. He tried a hand on Bruce's forehead, to gauge the fever. "Well," he said. "Alfred was. . . he had lots of things to do today. He said to tell you he was sorry, though."

"Mkay. Not a pest."

"What?"

"Marceline. Called me pest. Housemaids kitchen. . . pantry door."

"You're not a pest. But Alfred said you should rest."

Bruce sighed at that, and Clark wrapped the covers tighter. He sat on the side of the bed, watching Bruce's fitful dozing, and when Bruce's eyes flew open a few minutes later, fearfully lucid, he held the bowl up and steadied Bruce's back as he retched some more. 

"You should know that what he's trying to do is not going to be easy," Leslie had said, six weeks ago when treatments had started. 

"I never thought it was," he had protested.

"No, I realize that. What I mean is that Bruce is attempting to do something I would normally never permit a patient to do. His oncologist is a friend of mine who trusts my judgment, and frankly, the only reason Bruce has been given permission to try this protocol, with this level of radiation and chemo, is because of his extraordinary physical condition."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that this amount of chemo would probably kill me, if I attempted it. There's no way a normal person survives it. It's the only chance for a remission he has, but it's a tremendous risk. You understand this is Bruce shoving all his chips across the table."

"Yes," he had said. "I get that."

They were sitting in her office at Gotham General, not in the Watchtower. He had never seen Leslie Thompkins outside of the Watchtower, and it was odd to sit here in her beautifully furnished office with its expensive but tastefully unobtrusive art and its comfortable but not too comfortable chairs and converse like what she would have called a normal person. He had never thought of her, somehow, as having a career apart from the League, much less as head of internal medicine at one of the East Coast's premier hospitals. Here they were just a coolly professional doctor and a man in an ill-fitting suit. 

"So I guess I shouldn't ask what the chances of success are," he said.

She spread her hands. "It's like buying a lottery ticket. Your odds of winning are extremely poor, but at least they're better than the odds of someone who doesn't buy a ticket at all."

"And what are the odds this. . . protocol actually hastens his death?"

"Substantial."

He got up then and walked to the window. "Did you suggest this to him?"

"No. It was his idea. You know Bruce. If he's going to fight, he's going to fight hard."

"Yes," he said. "I know Bruce."

"I'm telling you all this with his permission. He's going to need someone just about 24 hours a day. He will be frequently unconscious, and those will be the best times."

"I know."

"Not yet you don't." She pursed her lips and looked down at her chart, but he knew she wasn't thinking about the chart. "My mother died five years ago," she said.

"I'm sorry."

"It was cancer, stage four, and she elected to go through treatment. I was with her, I was the one looking after her. It's a special kind of hell, seeing someone you care about so much in that kind of extended suffering. In my profession I see a lot of suffering. I would imagine the same is true for you."

"Maybe. But I get to fly in and make everything better, which is different from medicine."

Her smile was thin. "Sometimes I even get to do that, on a good day. My point is, I thought I would be able to handle it, because of my day job."

"This is where you tell me again that this will not be easy?"

"This is where I tell you again this will not be easy. And where I tell you I'm just a phone call away, if you ever need help or just someone to talk to."

"I'll be fine. But thank you. I appreciate it."

She had looked at him oddly—assessing, somehow. Like her diagnostic gaze was not something she could take on and off, but had become the way she looked at all people now. "You don't fly in and fix this," she said.

"I'm not an idiot," he said in some exasperation. "I think I have some idea what's about to happen."

"Do you," she said. "You know that with this type of leukemia, there is no standard staging system. There's no stage one, stage two, that sort of thing. There's just untreated, in remission, or recurrent. That translates to dead, alive, or waiting to die."

He was starting to wonder if "complete lack of bedside manner" had been on Bruce's checklist when he had hired her to be the League's doctor. 

There was no initial surgery, because this was leukemia, and there were no isolated tumors to fight. The only surgery that would have done any good was one that pulled out all his bone marrow and replaced it, so barring that, the idea was to barrage his body down to its last cell with choking levels of radiation and punishingly toxic chemicals, in the hope that whatever things were left alive after they were done would include Bruce himself. So the only surgery he underwent was the one to install a central venous catheter in his chest, which would make administration of the chemo drugs easier, as well as the pain meds for the inevitable grinding bone pain.

After the first course of radiation and the first dose of accompanying chemo, Clark contemplated a reply to one of Leslie's many texts: _frequently unconscious, my ass_. The problem was, Bruce's extraordinary threshold of pain meant he just didn't pass out when a normal person would. It meant he was awake for all the pain. It meant Clark had to watch him writhe and twist and shake with tightened jaw and clenched fists, trying to refuse the morphine. It meant Clark had to watch when he would finally give in and let Clark inject the blessed relief, only to watch again as the morphine failed to help. It was one of the bitter facts of chemo, that pain meds had reduced effect.

That first week, there wasn't an hour Clark didn't want to go out into the hall and punch something. But he wouldn't do that to Bruce—wouldn't look away. If Bruce wasn't going to flinch, then neither was he. 

He had decided to keep a few things in the small bedroom nearest Bruce's, but after the first course of treatment he gave up on that. Most nights he slept on the sofa in Bruce's room, in front of the fire. Some nights he slept on the floor by Bruce's bed, when the sofa was just too far away. Those nights he would keep a hand up on the bed, resting beside Bruce, and if the pain got too bad, Bruce would grab his hand and wring it. That was one thing he could do, at least, since Bruce didn't have to worry about hurting him, but could grip that hand with strength that would have crushed another person's bones.

Or it would have, before. 

He had never seen Bruce looking like anything other than himself—that was to say, in peak physical and mental condition. He had known intellectually what the cancer treatment would do to him, but it was impossible to imagine. Even when it was happening before his eyes, it was hard to grasp. The weight loss was not so much steady as precipitate: in less than a month, Bruce was gaunt, his eyes hollowed. To see Bruce losing muscle mass was incomprehensible; his eyes would almost not take it in. Instinctively he found himself calculating how long it would take Bruce to build himself back up in training, after this was all over, before he realized that of course it wasn't going to be over; Bruce was not going to look like himself, ever again. In one respect he didn't look like other cancer patients, because unlike most people undergoing radiation and chemo his hair only thinned, and didn't fall out. And maybe that was worse, somehow, because he could walk into a room and see Bruce, and he just looked like Bruce, and for a half second Clark would forget, until he met those tired eyes and saw the lean boniness underneath the bathrobe. 

"Go home, take a break, get out of here," Bruce said one morning.

"Tired of me already?" Clark was stretched on the sofa in the bedroom, his bare feet up on the arm of the sofa, the _Gotham Gazette_ open to the crossword.

"You take up too much room. Also you—" He started coughing, and Clark listened in silence to the wet ugly rattle in his chest. Mucus production was out of control, and he knew Leslie was concerned about fluid build-up in the lungs. 

"You should take some of that Mucinex. And I'm afraid you're just going to have to put up with me for a while more. I really like the water pressure here at the Manor." He flipped to the metro section and scanned it—and then his eyes stopped in horror. Schooling his face into stillness, he read. "Anyway," he continued. "Dick will be here this weekend, and you can kick me out then."

Bruce was silent, and Clark glanced over at the easy chair. It was one of those days where making it to the chair was the day's accomplishment. Bruce was wrapped in about seven blankets, because there was no such thing as warm enough, ever. He was always cold now. He was watching the fire, and Clark wondered if he had forgotten his presence. "Hey," Clark said softly.

"Mm."

"You want another blanket?"

Bruce shifted and nodded, just a quick jerk of his head. Probably he felt like being cold was some kind of failure. Clark picked another blanket off the rack Alfred kept warming by the fire, and draped him. "When Dick comes, you'll go home?" Bruce was tugging the blanket tighter, and not looking at him.

"Not if you want me to stay."

Bruce shook his head, the same abrupt motion. "You need a break. Go breathe some fresh air, remind yourself what life looks like." 

Clark crouched by his chair. He picked up Bruce's hand and held it, studying the knuckles. The skin looked stretched too thin. He had been going home on the weekends, not because he wanted a break—being away was a torment—but because he wanted to do the gracious thing for Dick, and let Dick have some time with Bruce when he wasn't around. So Dick came every weekend, and Clark went home and counted the hours and tried not to badger Dick with his texts. When he walked back into the Manor on Monday mornings, Bruce never said anything that indicated he knew he had been gone. But his eyes followed Clark everywhere he went. 

"I don't need a break," he said, and pressed his mouth to the cold hand, kissed it. He felt Bruce's instinctive jerk at the touch, and released the hand without comment. Bruce was frowning at him. Immediately both Bruce's arms retreated inside the blanket, and Clark couldn't help the sad smile—if Bruce had been a turtle, he would have snapped shut his shell. 

He rose and went back to his paper, keeping page two of the metro section turned away from Bruce. "It's easier," Bruce said, after a few minutes. "When it's you." His face was still turned toward the fire. 

"Then I stay," Clark said. "That's simple."

"I'm sorry," Bruce said. 

"What for?"

"Everything."

Clark tossed aside the paper. He tried to think of what to say, but came up with nothing. What on earth could Bruce think he had to apologize for? Bruce's eyes were closed, anyway, and he appeared to have drifted off. Clark watched him for a few more minutes, glad to see the relative steadiness of his breathing that said for now, anyway, he was in deep and painfree sleep. He reached over and took his hand again, which was cheating, of course. He was surprised to feel Bruce's hand squeeze his in return, a solid pressure. Clark didn't move until he was certain, this time, that Bruce slept, and then he slipped his hand out and retrieved his paper. 

He went down to the kitchens in search of Alfred, and when he found him, slapped the metro section down on the table. "Did you see this?" he demanded.

Alfred quirked a brow. "I glanced at it," he said. 

"It's an outrage, is what it is. It's a disgrace. Worse than disgrace, it's an obscenity. Of all the ridiculous, irresponsible, ungrateful—" He shook his head.

"You mustn't take it so to heart, Mr. Kent. Newspapers will print anything if they think it will sell a few copies."

"Not all newspapers are like that."

"No doubt. But the Gazette is not exactly known for its Pulitzer Prize-winning journalistic ethics, is it?"

Clark sighed and looked at the offending column. _Illness, uncertainty shake Wayne Corp_ , read the headline, but the article wasn't about Wayne Corp at all, but Bruce. The press had poked at him a few times since his spokesman had announced his leave of absence from the company's board due to medical reasons. There had been no more details made available to the public, but this was Gotham, and it wasn't likely to remain a secret for long that Bruce Wayne was dying of leukemia. Clark vividly remembered one society column that had put "leukemia" in quotes throughout, as though Bruce were covering for AIDS in some 1990s obituary dodge. But even that hadn't made him as angry as this. 

"'As one of Gotham's most colorful public figures nears the end of his life, it's worthwhile taking a look at the list of his accomplishments. In this case, it's worthwhile asking why that list is so short,'" Clark read aloud with indignation. 

"Oscar Wilde did say the only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about." Alfred bent to retrieve a silver chest, whose contents he began placidly organizing. 

"But did you read the next part? This is what really chaps my hide. 'It is also instructive to compare Mr. Wayne's unimpressive list of achievements with his father's list. Thomas Wayne gave back to this city in myriad ways, and his son's determination to waste that legacy in more ways than we can list here shames both the city of Gotham and the Wayne name.'"

"Mm," Alfred clucked. 

"And then they—there's a _list _here, Alfred, an honest-to-God list. Look at this." He slapped his hand on the paper. "Thomas Wayne in one column, Bruce Wayne in the other. Can you believe that?"__

__"Yes, that's very provoking."_ _

__"These ungrateful little—it's enough to make me march down there and stuff this paper down some jerk's throat—if they knew half, if they knew one- _tenth_ of what Bruce has done for this city—"_ _

__"Mr. Kent, you mustn't allow yourself to be so concerned by this filth."_ _

__"Yeah, well this filth makes me want to vomit. It's obscene, is what it is!"_ _

__"No, Mr. Kent. It's journalism." Alfred was steadily sorting the silver._ _

__"Okay," Clark said. "It's—is it because of what I do? Is that why you don't like me?"_ _

__Alfred looked up at that. There was something new on his face, and it looked very like surprise. "Why on earth would you think I don't like you, sir?"_ _

__"I don't—well," Clark said. Now he felt foolish for having said anything, but it had just hit him like a thunderclap, that of course Alfred's dislike of the press, having served here at Wayne Manor for most of his life, would be intense. It just hadn't occurred to him before. "Sorry," he said. God, that made him sound even more pathetic._ _

__"No," Alfred said. He was frowning. "No, I am the one who ought to apologize. And I ought to say—" He fell to rubbing an invisible spot on a silver fork with great vigor. "I ought to say thank you," he said, with a hoarse voice. "What you've done for him, in the last few weeks—I know you haven't done it to be thanked, but I'm thanking you nonetheless. You are. . . a good man, Mr. Kent. I'm sorry I haven't always known that, and sorrier still that I haven't shown it." He replaced the fork and closed the lid. He put a hand on Clark's shoulder as he walked past on his way back to the silver closet._ _

__"Okay," he said to the empty kitchen, after Alfred had left. Score one for Smallville, then._ _


	4. Talking to Jason

"I have a proposal for you."

The flick of Jason's eyes said he was interested, though he was sprawled casually across the park bench, seemingly watching the ducks in the pond. A little girl ran around throwing hunks of bread at the ducks while her mother chased after her. Bruce pulled his coat closer. It was edging into a warm spring, but not soon enough; the cold pried into his bones now, and it was easy to imagine his bones as porous, with the wind whipping through them. But the park had been his choice.

"I need to go out," he had said to Alfred. "And I need you to take me."

"Of course, sir." He had asked Alfred, because with Clark there would have been questions, and probably some offer to accompany him which was less offer than demand. He had instructed Alfred to arrive forty-five minutes early in order to get him seated on the park bench and the wheelchair stashed out of sight in the car. Then there was just the sitting and waiting, and wondering whether Jason would show or not. It was even money, but instinct said he would.

When Jason arrived, in frayed jeans and a dirty hoodie, he looked at Bruce, taking in his wasted, pale body wrapped in sweater, parka, and heavy scarf, and then he sat silently on the bench beside Bruce for a full four minutes, his head in his hands. "Pull yourself together," Bruce said. "You can't say there's a part of you that isn't glad to see it." 

Jason looked at him then, and he had calculated it just right, because that put the spit back in Jason's eyes. "Goddamn you," he said. 

"In good time. Thank you for coming."

"Like I wasn't going to. How. . ." Jason made a vague hand gesture. "You know, how are you?"

Bruce turned to watch a flock of pigeons bob its way toward them. "Never better, thanks for asking. I'm assuming Dick has communicated most of the particulars?"

"He did, yes, thanks for the personal reach-out there. That was great, hearing that news second-hand. You're a real prince, you know that?"

"So I'm told. Care to hear why I wanted to talk?"

"Sure, Bruce. Absolutely. Because you're right, dying isn't really enough of a reason for us to get together. I mean, why get sentimental, am I right?"

"I thought you might like to know I was wrong about two things."

"Only two? And me without my notepad. Okay, talk slow, I'll try to keep up."

"I was wrong, years ago, when I thought you weren't as good as Dick." He was pleased to see he had silenced Jason with that one; probably Jason had thought he would never own up to thinking that. "Dick had a gift, even as a young boy. Even for someone who had been trained as he was, he had a gift for graceful, powerful movement that made him a genius at combat."

"Yes, please let's talk more about Dick's perfection, I'm loving this conversation already."

"My point is, I was wrong to compare you to that, when you were a boy. That was an impossible standard to meet."

Jason began quietly laughing. "Man, you are a piece of work."

"What I am trying to say is, over the last few years I have watched you fight, more carefully than you know. Once or twice I have been lucky enough to fight at your side. What I have seen has been. . . extraordinary. You began with a solid foundation in my teaching, but most of what you have learned since has been self-taught. As a consequence, your fighting style is rough and ungraceful. You waste movement and spend needless energy. But you are unbeatable."

"Hang on, go back, somewhere in there you might have paid me an involuntary compliment. Better look out."

"Do you want to hear the second thing I was wrong about?"

"Sure, why not, you're on a roll."

"The second thing is, I made the mistake of thinking you knew how much I loved you."

Every muscle in Jason's body stilled. He didn't need to look at Jason to know it. To anyone walking by, they were two scruffy guys sitting on a bench looking at ducks. Jason bent forward and rubbed at his forehead. "Okay," Jason said at last. "You're dying, I guess that means you get one conversation where you try to pull this shit on me."

"I have a proposal for you." And there was the eye-flick that told him Jason was listening.

"Right, because of course that was just the wind-up. Okay, hit me."

"I want you to be Batman."

He had the satisfaction of knowing that he had knocked the wind out of Jason for the second time. This time Jason actually got up and walked over to the pond, and then walked back, standing in front of him. "Are you on. . . what the fuck meds are you on, exactly?"

"Listen to me. This is something you can do."

Jason sat back on the bench, laughing. "Jesus Christ, what the fuck is wrong with you."

"Dick has no desire to spend the rest of his life as Batman. He was born to be Nightwing, and while he doesn't mind borrowing the suit occasionally, that's all it will ever be for him—a borrowed suit, a borrowed life. It isn't what he actually wants."

"Which of course leads us to choice number two."

"No," Bruce said emphatically. "You were never that. The truth is, Dick lacks the core of ruthlessness Batman needs. Batman is rage, and righteous anger. You have to know and love the uses of fear, to be Batman."

Jason was squinting at him. "And in your messed-up head, you think that's me."

"I know it's you. Jason. Listen to me. It was always going to be you. I always meant it to be you. We're more alike than you're willing to know. You were born to wear that suit."

"I doubt your boy Timmy would agree with that."

"Tim knows his combat skills are not equal to yours. He is a powerful and dangerous adversary, but he's not Batman."

"Dick and Tim—"

"Are good people. You and I are not."

"Stop, you're gonna make me cry. You're forgetting The Littlest Assassin, daddy's demon hellspawn. From what I hear, he's ready to suit up and kick ass, just as soon as he's finished with the fifth grade."

"You will train Damian as I trained you, and Dick, and Tim. He loves and trusts Dick, but it's your hand he will need, guiding him. He needs someone who can understand his anger, who can show him what to do with it. He'll be even angrier after I'm gone."

"You honestly think that person is me," Jason said. "You are that deluded."

"I know it's you."

"Bruce. . ." He leaned forward again, massaging his forehead. "See, what you're not understanding is, I think what you do is wrong. Actively _wrong_ , you get that? Throwing criminals in the revolving door of the system just creates more innocent victims on the other end. You understand that equation at all? Because at some level you have to understand that finally what we do is supposed to be about helping other people, not just offering you a channel for your own rage and revenge fantasies."

"I see. It's good to know that you shoot people in the face out of pure altruism."

Jason's laugh this time was genuinely amused, like Bruce had finally said something interesting. He hadn't meant to let Jason get to him like that, but when had they not pushed all each other's buttons? "My point is," he tried again.

"Yeah, I get your point," Jason said, and they sat there in silence a while more, watching the little girl and the ducks. "You think Red Hood would be easier for me to leave behind than Nightwing would, for Dick?"

"I think there are any number of people who could wear that mask and do what Red Hood does. Roy comes to mind. His sense of morality is suitably elastic. Maybe if you knew there was someone out there doing the dirty work you love so much, you could concentrate on the harder work of Batman."

Jason glanced at his watch. "Welp, I think we're done here. You've insulted me, my friends, and my life's work, so look at that, we're about out of time."

"Promise me you'll think about it," Bruce said.

"Promise me you won't die," Jason retorted. 

He flexed his hands in his gloves. "I'm trying," he said. "Believe me, I'm trying."

Jason stood, shoving his hands into his hoodie. He looked down at Bruce, who was suddenly aware that he no longer outweighed this young man, who was every inch as tall as he. "The thing is," Jason said. He stood there a minute more, looking at Bruce's shoes. "The thing is, about what you said before. I did know. I always knew, Bruce."

"I—"

"But do you," Jason said. "Do _you_ know." Bruce looked at him, trying to parse what on earth he could mean. And then Jason bent down, brushed Bruce's scarf slightly aside, and kissed him, right on his stubbled cheek. If he had tossed a ninja star into the flock of mallards, Bruce could not have been more surprised. He sat there, nonplussed. 

"Remember your promise," Jason said. 

"You remember yours." 

"Yeah yeah," Jason said, but his smirk was drained of venom. "Always a gotcha, with the Batman."

Bruce watched him walk away, aimlessly around the pond. The little girl veered around him, narrowly avoiding his legs; she had long ago gotten bored with ducks and begun playing fighter plane, her arms outstretched, strafing passersby. Something in her ferocity pleased Bruce to see, made him think of Barbara at that age. Well. If Jason turned him down, Barbara was always a possibility. What she lacked in weight and heft she more than made up for in agility and cleverness, but there was more to being Batman than that. It was possible she had enough of her father's ruthlessness for the job.

He was grateful Alfred waited a few more minutes, giving him the time to compose himself. He was even more grateful Alfred made no attempt at conversation on the drive back to the Manor.


	5. Talking to Selina

He should have expected the soft fall of feet on the floor behind him, and the gust from the open window. Selina Kyle was lifting her goggles onto her head and studying him. "You're that reporter," she said. "From the Daily Planet."

"I am." He should have said more—should have bumbled around a bit more, looked more astonished to see Catwoman burst through the upstairs hall window at eleven o'clock at night. For a second he wondered why she didn't just arrive in Bruce's bedroom, then remembered her skill with a grapple was not Bruce's; the wider ledges on this side of the house made for a safer entry point. It also allowed her to prowl a bit, and get her bearings before she decided whether to pay a nocturnal visit or not. 

"Not going to alert Alfred on me, are you?"

"I'm not."

"Good." She was tugging off a long leather glove with her teeth. "So," she said, with another look up and down him. "You're far too pretty to be the help."

"I'm just here for a few days. Bruce and I are old friends."

"Mm." The arch of her brow was precipitous. "Are you now." She sashayed his direction, and he found he was frozen. The creak of her boots was an inch from his feet. The cant of her body as she put a hand on her hip was. . . interesting. He had never had Selina Kyle's full attention before. Well—Superman had, certainly. Superman was a prize that fascinated her. But she had no reason to notice Clark Kent. A razor-sharp fingernail trailed down his shirtfront.

"I've known about the. . . breadth of Bruce's tastes for a long time. I guess he can't be all that sick, if he's still keeping some eye-candy around. Or are you also for eating?"

"Selina." Bruce was leaning against his doorframe, in his bathrobe. It had been a good day; he had even made it downstairs for half an hour or so. Sometimes, between the Scylla of the pain and the Charybdis of the confusion there would come brief lucid periods, and then it was possible to sit in the weak spring sunlight, or to walk about a bit. Then he could imagine that Bruce had the flu, and would be better soon.

He heard Selina's intake of breath when she saw him. "You _are_ sick," she said. "You look like hell. What's wrong? I don't believe anything I read in the papers."

"You came all this way," Bruce said. "Why don't you come in?"

"Don't mind if I do." She all but flicked her tail as she slipped inside Bruce's bedroom door. "Bye, candy," she said to Clark. Bruce shut the door behind her. He didn't look at Clark. 

Clark went to his little room at the end of the hall. He obviously wasn't going to be sleeping on the sofa in Bruce's room tonight. He pulled off his shirt and lay down on the bed and tried to be fine with that. He tried not to think about what was going on in there, what Bruce might be saying, what they might be doing. A small vicious part of him was glad of the chemo, for the breath of a second, because it meant Bruce wasn't able to have sex, and then in the next breath he was so nauseated at himself he had to sit up. 

"You pathetic piece of shit," he said. 

It had happened between them maybe half a dozen times. He had known exactly the score, each time. Bruce and Selina—they had slept together a lot more than that. It was entirely possible that Bruce loved her. As for what Bruce had done in bed with him, that was just release. That was two needy bodies looking to find uncomplicated fulfillment. His self-disgust, that he could be jealous of Selina, was profound. 

It was close to three in the morning before Selina left. He tried not to hear their footfalls. Tried not to hear the rustle of clothes as they embraced, and the softer slide of skin. _Evil_ , he thought to himself. _I am evil and foul_. He was greedy, because Bruce offered him the miracle of his friendship, and Clark was a spoiled child who wanted more, who beat with angry fists on the glass because he couldn't have every toy in the store he wanted. 

And then the window casement was opened, and he heard the scrape of a boot on stone, and knew she was gone. He heard the whoosh of Bruce's house shoes on the carpet, and his painfully slow step. He heard Bruce's step go past his own room and stop at Clark's door. Bruce opened the door, leaned his head against the frame.

"Can you help me," he whispered.

Clark was there in an instant, catching him as he swayed. Bruce didn't object when Clark lifted him into his arms. "You exhausted yourself," Clark murmured.

"I know. Don't lecture."

Clark carried him into the bedroom and got him arranged in the bed—house shoes off, robe removed, blankets pulled up. He would need fresh water, and possibly a bowl, and pain meds on the nightstand, both oral and a syringe, in case things got bad. Bruce watched him as he worked. Clark tugged at the blankets again, covering him better. Of course Bruce had pushed himself as hard as he could, trying not to appear sick in front of Selina. 

"I'm glad the two of you got some time together," Clark said, more or less believably.

"Mm. There are things Selina's not. . . equipped to understand."

"Like illness?"

"Like death."

Clark turned his head aside at the word. "We're not there yet," he said.

"Maybe you're not."

He turned back to find Bruce's eyes still on him. "Clark. You ever have. . ." he licked his lips. Clark handed him the water, supported his head. "You ever have that moment in a fight when you know you've miscalculated? Maybe fighting Doomsday, or Darkseid. You've felt it, at least once, I know."

"I've felt it."

"I thought I could do it," Bruce said. 

"You can."

"But if I can't."

Clark said nothing, but gripped Bruce's hand. "I know you can."

Bruce's eyes on him were dark and sad. "All right," he said. "Will you do me a favor."

"Anything."

"Will you tell me. . . tell me when I can stop fighting."

Clark held the hand to his face and fought down the hot choke of tears. He had not cried in front of Bruce so far, and he would be damned if he was going to start now. He would be damned to hell if he would. 

"Promise me you'll tell me," Bruce said, and Clark nodded against his hand.

"I will," he said, and it was the truth. "The minute you can stop, I will let you know. But you have to trust me until then. You have to keep fighting, right until then. Can you do it?"

"Yes," Bruce said, his eyelids slipping closed. He didn't let go of Clark's hand. 

Clark slid to the floor and stayed there, letting the tears soak his face then. No sobs or anything that would shake the bed and disturb what was left of Bruce's sleep; just a simple wash of tears he didn't wipe off. He held onto the hand until dawn.


	6. Talking to Dick

Clark stood at the wall of window in the conference room, with his back to the door. He kept looking out at the stars and the carpet of black and the spinning blue ball below, because he knew who it was. "I think that went well," he said, not turning from the window. 

"Really." Dick collapsed in a chair behind him. He could hear Dick propping his feet on the table. "Do you now."

"You've headed the League before in our absence. Having you at the helm is reassuring." He watched the orbit of several satellites spin into the darkness of the far side of Earth. It felt strange to be dressed as Superman again, after weeks away from it. The cape felt heavy on his shoulders, uncomfortable. It had been easy to forget the League existed, and all its needs. "Anyway. I thought you did well, in talking to them. Everyone likes and respects Nightwing. You won't have any trouble establishing your authority, and after a while—"

"It ought to be you," Dick said angrily. "You and I both know that. Or Diana. Or any of the founding members. I have no business leading the League."

"It's what you were trained to do," he said. "You'll be great at it."

"Thanks for the absent-minded vote of confidence there. I can't help but feel it would be more convincing if you would turn around and look at me."

"Sorry." Clark turned and sat beside him, with a thin smile. "My mind is elsewhere, I guess."

"Mine too." He saw Dick lick his lips, and could practically see the small hesitation as he considered his next words. "You know," he started. "It's a little hard for me to believe I have your full confidence as the League's leader when you don't even have the confidence to trust me alone at the Manor for a weekend."

"Right. Well. That—believe me, Dick, that has nothing to do with your ability to handle things, at all. That's just. . . I feel better if. . . I'm close by. That's about me and my needs, not you at all."

"You're at the Manor, where you're not really needed," Dick mused. "And you're not here, where you are needed. You're not giving the League the leadership it's expecting from you. They were looking to you today, to provide some stable leadership. It's a transition time. But you've already checked out."

"That's probably true."

He saw Dick's look of surprise. Probably he hadn't expected Clark to admit it. "Look," Clark continued. "I understand what you're saying. But the sooner the League comes to look to you rather than me, the better."

"Why?" Dick's eyes were narrowed, studying him carefully. 

"Because. . . because you're the best choice for the job. Because you're someone the League will always be able to rely on. Bruce has taught you to lead, and you're more than ready to do it."

"And because you're leaving." 

Clark was quiet. He didn't bother denying it. "I don't believe it," Dick was saying. "I cannot believe this. I thought I was right, but couldn't actually believe I was right."

"Dick. . ."

Superman is abandoning Earth. You're leaving us."

"Not. . . entirely," he protested. "I'll just be spending some time away, probably."

"After Bruce is gone," Dick said, saying the unsayable. They sat there in the middle of those words, silently. How to explain it to Dick, who could not possibly understand? How to find the words for it? Beyond the windows of the Watchtower, Earth spun like a blue jewel. But without its molten core, all that delicate swirl of cloud and tree and mountain laurel would collapse into nothingness, into a heap of ash. And that was what it was for him, imagining a world without Bruce in it; that was what Bruce was, for him. He didn't know when he had made his decision, and truthfully he wasn't even aware that it _was_ a decision. It was just a fact he had become aware of, in the last few weeks. Bruce would die, and he would leave. There would be nothing to tether him to Earth anymore, after that. Every sunset over the wide midwestern plains would be not so much a lie as pointless. He would be pointless. 

"You'll come back every now and then, won't you," Dick said.

"Of course." And he meant it. He truly didn't intend to end his life or anything selfishly dramatic like that. He wouldn't think about doing something like that when Bruce was fighting so hard to live, because that would be an insult to Bruce, to treat life like that.

The thing of it was, contemplating Bruce's absence didn't make him want to be dead; it made him aware that Bruce's absence would _be_ death, so ending his life at that point would be redundant and unnecessary. There weren't words he could find to explain this to Dick. Possibly Dick was too young to know the strange truth that some loves were impossible to be lived around. There was surely a word in German for that exact emotion. He should have taken German, in school.

He looked up to find Dick's eyes on him, oddly like Bruce's. They were sad and comprehending. "We'll never see you again," he said, and Clark shook his head.

"I wouldn't do that. I'll be here whenever you need me."

"I need you now. I'll need you even more, afterward. Clark. Look at me and tell me I'm going to lose you both. You fucking look at me and say it."

He found nothing to say, and words only stuck in his throat. Dick was asking him to reason, to think, to imagine a world with its core hollowed out, and the physics of it was impossible. "I need to get back," Clark said after a while, and Dick nodded: neither condemning nor angry. That wasn't Dick's way, and never had been. He wore a mask, and yet was more himself than other men were naked. Dick was honest, and true, and always and only himself. _My greatest accomplishment_ , Bruce had once said. He wondered if Bruce had ever said it to Dick.

"You mean more to him than anyone else in the world," Clark said, stopping at the doors.

Dick's smile was as sad as his eyes. "What gets me is how much you believe that," he said.


	7. Talking to. . . you have got to be kidding me.

The number of phone calls had really surprised him, truth was. Because he saw only one part of Bruce's life—his life as Batman—it was easy to forget that the other half of his life was spent as Bruce Wayne, and that Bruce Wayne's life was pretty damn exotic. When news got out of Bruce's illness, and afterward, when news got out how serious it was, the phone calls started coming in. Bruce didn't answer his cell any more, or at least, didn't keep track of it, so eventually the calls to his cell became calls to the house phone, and Alfred or Clark would answer them.

"A young Danish woman called to send her kindest regards and best wishes," Alfred would say, and then they would have to puzzle it out, because Alfred knew nothing about celebrities or movie stars or anyone famous, really. 

"Danish?" Bruce asked, with a frown.

"I believe so, sir, from her surname. She was quite charming and polite, very pleasant. A Miss Johansson. I am sorry, but I was not able to catch her first name, or if I did I must have misheard." Yo- _hahn_ -son, Alfred said, giving the name the correct pronunciation. "Her English was excellent, however."

"Yo-hahn-son," Bruce repeated, before enlightenment struck. "First name Scarlett, by any chance?"

"Yes, that was it sir, please forgive me. I thought it was a color, but could not recall which one."

"Scarlett Johansson called you?" Clark sat up straighter. They were sitting around the breakfast tray in the upstairs parlor, a smallish light-filled room just down the hall from Bruce's bedroom. It was a shorter walk than getting downstairs, but it gave him a change of scene. "I'm sorry, did you just say that Scarlett Johansson called to talk to you?"

"Alfred, I think you should give Clark the job of answering the phone," Bruce said with a smile over his teacup.

It did end up being him who answered the phone a lot of the time, just because Alfred couldn't be everywhere, and the phone rang almost night and day now. Lots of the time it was Jim Gordon, who hadn't been to the house. He hadn't come to visit Bruce, but he called almost every day, to talk to him or Alfred, and to hear the update on how Bruce was doing. They were always short conversations, marked by grunts on the other end, and there was no pleasantry, nothing but an awkward, "All right, thanks, give him my. . . okay, bye," after which he would hang up.

"Why doesn't he just come see him," Clark said to Alfred, as they were washing dishes one night, after the fifth call from Gordon that week.

"Because he can't," Alfred said simply. "It's not everyone who can face this sort of thing. He is doing what he can."

"Hmph. I never thought of Jim Gordon as a coward."

"No more he is. But this is not the same as facing down an armed robber, or a serial killer. There isn't any possible win here. He wouldn't know what to say."

"He wouldn't have to say anything. He shouldn't say anything. But he could come and. . . I don't know, just sit and talk about normal things. Why do people think they need to say anything." He continued drying in silence. "You know, here's a thought. You won't let us put the good china in the dishwasher, so how about maybe we eat for everyday on the not-so-good china, and save ourselves half an hour of hand washing every night? Just wondering."

"Because that way lies ruin," Alfred replied. 

"And the downfall of Western civilization, right, I got it." He reached for another towel. "You mean that?" he asked, after a minute.

"Mean what?"

"About no possible win. I mean, this level of radiation. . . there's always a chance that. . ." He wouldn't meet Alfred's eyes. The quiet blanketing the kitchen was his answer. "Right."

They finished drying the Spode and stacking it in the cupboard. This time Alfred didn't even undo his stacks and re-do them the right way, so he must be learning something. "We'll make a butler of you yet, Master Clark," Alfred said, and Clark smiled, not at the compliment but at the _Master Clark_ , because for the first time he wasn't _Mister Kent_. 

"Alfred, can I ask you a question? Do you think Bruce thinks. . . I mean, he's staking everything he has on that win you think is impossible. . ."

"No, Master Clark, I don't think Master Bruce cherishes any unrealistic expectations. But when the fall is all there is, it matters," he said, and he smiled, wearily. "My apologies. A quote from my favorite movie, as it happens. Back when movie stars had recognizable names."

Sometimes in the evenings, to distract Bruce, the two of them would watch a movie together, on a laptop or Bruce's tablet. That night he suggested Lion in Winter, because Alfred had put it into his head. Most of the time when they watched, Bruce would drift off, or stare into the middle distance, mind clearly elsewhere. Tonight, though, he watched intently. Bruce's attention made him wonder if that was how he saw himself—if there was a small part of Bruce that looked at the embattled King Henry in his final years, surrounded by his sons and the wreckage of his complicated life, and saw himself. 

"Maybe we should have picked something cheerier," Clark said. 

"It's not like I don't know the ending. Stop talking."

So he subsided, and enjoyed Bruce's enjoyment. There wasn't anything that held his attention much, or that he truly seemed to enjoy these days. But it was a good week, and the growing spring warmth seemed to be helping Bruce. He had this fantasy that Bruce could absorb the sunlight and use it for strength like he did, so he encouraged him to try sitting outdoors for a little bit every day. On Friday he wheeled him out by the pool, and sat him in the sun wrapped in blankets and sunglasses, and watched the cloud shadows move across the gardens below. He thought Bruce might have fallen asleep when Alfred cleared his throat behind them.

"Excuse me sir, a Mr. Clooney has called for you."

"I don't believe it," Clark laughed, with a rueful shake of his head. Bruce waved a weak hand.

"Take a message," he said. 

"That's the trouble, sir," Alfred said. "He has rung several times this week, and I have explained your condition. He did not telephone today. When I say he has called, I mean that in the Victorian sense of the expression. He is in the foyer."

"Holy heifers," Clark said, and Bruce began softly laughing—at him, no doubt.

"Whatever, Alfred. Show him out here."

"Bruce," Clark said with a frown. "You just took your meds. You're going to need to lie down in a few minutes. Entertaining visitors is not—"

"Who said anything about me? You can do all the entertaining, I'm just going to sit here."

"What? You can't do that, I don't know this person at all."

"Then we're even, because it's not like I've spent that much time with him either. He was on Formentera last summer when I was there, and we hit it off. Then that weekend party in Georgica Pond, but that was ages ago. You'll be fine."

"Right, I'm sure I'll have tons to talk about with some airhead movie star that—"

"George," Bruce said. "You're not an easy man to get rid of."

"I'm not," said the affable gray-haired man squinting into the sunlight. "But I wouldn't have to show up at your house if you'd take my calls once in a while. Hi, I'm George," he said, extending his hand to Clark. 

"Clark Kent. I'm with the, ah, Daily Planet. Do you want to—please, ah, take a seat."

"The Planet," he said. "Bruce, are you giving interviews? Wait a minute, did I just become part of this article?"

"You're a footnote at best," Bruce said. "'This interview was difficult to conduct because of the adoring throng of Mr. Wayne's admirers who kept hurling themselves at his feet while we were trying to converse.' It practically writes itself. Alfred, bring us a few drinks, will you?"

"Very good, sir."

It wasn't that Clark hadn't been around Bruce when he slipped into Socialite Bruce. It was that he forgot, every time, how natural it was for Bruce. It wasn't much of a mask at all; it was really just another part of him, and names like Formentera and Georgica Pond were windows into a whole world Clark had never seen, would never be part of. Clooney was laughing easily, crossing his legs in his studiedly-not-expensive-looking trousers. With his blazer and sunglasses and glowing skin, he looked like he had just stepped off a Mediterranean beach himself.

"Clark Kent," he was musing aloud, turning Clark's direction. "I'm sorry, I just realized—I know your work."

"You do," he said, with a lift of his eyebrows. 

"You wrote the article series on the, the dockworkers' union, wasn't it? About the negotiations with cities up and down the East Coast, and how those negotiations were fixed, keeping the workers' wages below cost of living rises, wasn't it? That was—I mean, that was a tough subject, some pretty dense material there, but I remember you boiled it all down and put the injustice of it in very stark terms, that was some powerful writing."

"Thank you," Clark said, and he didn't trouble to hide his surprise. He had been nominated for a Pulitzer for that one, and that had set Bruce off, muttering about keeping a low profile and not drawing undue attention. _Thank God you didn't win_ , Bruce had texted him not four seconds after the winner had been announced at the Pulitzer banquet. And then, some fifteen minutes later: _I'm sorry you didn't win_. 

"Sorry, I know you probably don't want to talk work, but that was some really great, eye-opening journalism," Clooney was saying, all his attention for the moment on Clark, who was finding it hard not to smile in return, however wanly. 

"That's—thank you," he said again. "I didn't know I had such a wide readership."

"He means he's surprised you can read," Bruce supplied.

"Yes, I got that, thanks Bruce."

"I'm actually—I'm not here in a professional capacity, I'm just—I'm a family friend. I'll, ah, go see if Alfred needs any help with those drinks," he said, rising. He retreated inside, trying to give Bruce space and time to talk to this friend like he had with Selina, because it had hit him about three seconds after Clooney had strolled out onto the terrace and smiled that melted-butter smile that of course Bruce had slept with him. He didn't know how he could have told you that, but he knew it was true.

They were sitting out there now, and Clooney was talking earnestly with Bruce, leaning forward a bit, but his head cocked too, like he was listening. It struck him that this man he didn't much like was the only one who hadn't taken no for an answer, and had come to see Bruce, not waiting for an invitation. That was more than he could say about the League, or about any of Bruce's other celebrity friends, for that matter. Or Jim Gordon. _It's not everyone who can face this sort of thing_ , Alfred had said. 

When he returned, he could see immediately that Bruce was fading. He was noticeably woozier, though Clark doubted Clooney could see it. A quick scan of his body showed blood pressure dropping, capillaries beginning to constrict. "Here we go," Clark said briskly, setting the drinks tray down. "Bruce, I think—why don't we go inside. Sun's getting a bit much."

"I'm fine," Bruce said. "Are you serious, Nan said that? I'm amazed she still has all her teeth, Marina's right hook does not mess around."

"I know, this is what I'm saying. Thanks, Clark, this hits the spot. Fortunately Marina was too laminated to focus both her eyes at the same time, so Nan's dentist missed a fat paycheck there. But the party just got more interesting from there. Everyone wondered where you were that night."

"Well, I'm a busy man."

"So I hear."

"I'm Batman," Bruce said confidentially, and Clark coughed into his scotch and water. 

"Bruce why don't we—"

"Stop worrying so much," Bruce said. "He's Superman," he whispered in an aside to Clooney.

"I see. And here I thought the only superhero around your household was Alfred. I mean, there has to be some sort of metahuman explanation for your wardrobe, because I know you don't have that kind of good taste."

"Oh hell no. Left to my own devices it would be all leather and Kevlar, twenty-four seven."

Clooney laughed. "Well, listen Batman, I need to let you get some rest. Superman over there is looking disapproving, and I promised Bob I'd be on time for this dinner in the city tonight. But listen," and he stood, put a hand on Bruce's shoulder. "You don't have to take every call. Maybe once every five or six times?"

"I think I can manage that," Bruce said, only slurring slightly. Alfred had suddenly appeared, and was standing at the door to the terrace to show the guest out. Clark waited until he heard the last of Clooney's shoes on the terrazzo of the front hall, and the click of the door, and then he tucked Bruce's blanket around him more firmly and began pushing him through the wider doors behind them to the conservatory. 

Bruce's head was tipping over to the side already, and he had slipped into sleep. He hated it when Bruce fell asleep in the chair, because he knew it was no good for his neck, and it was almost impossible to get him out and get him comfortable without rousing him. He bent to give it a try though, which was why he had stopped listening for Clooney, and was caught unawares at the sudden footsteps behind him. 

"I'm sorry," Clooney whispered in a low voice. "I didn't mean to tire him out like that. I'll get out of here, I promise. But I forgot to ask you. Would you mind very much giving me a business card? I'm going to be at a dinner tonight with some people who are very interested in the sorts of issues you care about, and I'm betting they would like to talk to you—you know, research for screenplays, that sort of thing. I promise, these are very good people, they won't bother you if you don't want to talk."

"Ah," he said, patting his jeans pocket. "It's just that I don't exactly have a card, and I—"

"Okay, that's no problem, here you go." Clooney pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Could you write your number on that, or your e-mail address? Only if you don't mind."

"Sure, that's fine." Clark scribbled his cell number on the piece of paper, and briefly arranged this story in his head as _that time George Clooney asked me for my number_. He capped the pen and smiled. "I really need to—"

"Sure sure, please, I'm sorry to overstay my welcome," and Clooney backed away, disappearing back toward the front hall as silently as he had appeared. Clark bent to Bruce and dispensed with the chair, scooping him up in his arms to get him upstairs and to bed as quickly as possible. Bruce's head jerked awake at the second-floor landing.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Did I fall asleep."

"Ssh, it's all right. Just rest."

"Mkay."

"I take it back, by the way. I like your friend George."

Bruce squinted up at him. "Who?"

Clark laughed softly, and tucked the dark head underneath his own, gentling his step to keep from jostling him too much.

* * *

After a run of good days, the bottom dropped out that night. Each hour brought some new hell: skyrocketing fever, bone pain that ripped moans from Bruce's parched throat, vomiting that wracked his empty stomach. He stared hollow-eyed at the ceiling as Clark and Alfred took turns wiping him down with cool cloths. Toward dawn, he slept fitfully, and Clark crept into the hallway and called Leslie.

"I don't think he can make it in today," he said. He closed the door of his little bedroom behind him and sat on the bed, rubbing at his burning exhausted eyes. "I know he's due for a treatment today, but I just don't think he can do it."

He heard Leslie's sigh. "Well, we can maybe move it back a day or two, do you think that will do it?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. I just—Leslie, I don't think he can do it. I think he just needs to stop."

"Is that what Bruce thinks?"

"We haven't. . . talked about it. But I'm telling you what I see."

"I understand. But this is the last course of treatment, Clark. We stop after this, take a few weeks off, and then do the bloodwork to see where we are. He just has to make it through this one more course."

"And I'm telling you he can't." His throat was too dry and tired to talk, almost. "Listen to me, I know what he can do and what he can't, and I'm telling you, he won't say stop. He is going to keep trying, and keep trying, and there is an excellent chance he dies on the radiation table today if you strap him in there one more time."

"I'm not saying you're wrong. I am saying, it's just one more treatment. You knew going in this would be hard." 

"Okay," he said, gritting his teeth. "Just. . . let me call you in a few hours, and we'll see, all right?"

"Are you going to talk to Bruce about it?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I have his medical power of attorney, and if need be, I will make this decision for him. Understand?"

"I do," she said. "I understand it's been a rough night, and I understand you are seeing him in pain, and you want it to end."

"Leslie. This is about him, about what he can take—"

"Just talk to me in a few hours, all right? Let's see where we are then."

"Fine," he said, and clicked the phone off. He kept sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching the phone, before he pulled it together and went back into Bruce's room to watch him sleep. He must have fallen asleep himself, because he jerked awake to the full bright sun of late morning, and a fresh breakfast tray beside him. Bruce slept still, so he grabbed a piece of toast and shuffled downstairs for hotter coffee. There was no sign of Alfred, but he must have been lurking somewhere, because when the doorbell rang he heard Alfred's quick step clicking on the tiles. When the man slept he had no idea. They needed to be better about their schedule, and about taking turns, but he knew what was in both their minds: neither of them wanted to be away during difficult nights, in case it was the last night. What a month ago was a distant unnamable possibility was now a daily reality.

Absently he began sorting through the mail on the big table in the conservatory, separating the personal notes and cards from the stack of bills. Bruce was beyond being able to write responses to any of them, but Clark could jot a line and maybe get him to sign his name for some of them. And he needed to call Leslie back, though Bruce was still asleep and he would have no idea if today's treatment was even going to be possible until he—

"Master Clark," Alfred said behind him. "A visitor." Alfred's disapproval was evident in his voice as he stepped away, and since when did Alfred ever allow that to happen? He must be more tired than Clark had thought. He looked up from the stack of mail to find George Clooney standing in the archway, his face grave, the easy smile gone.

"Ah," he said. "George. Okay. Listen, today is. . . not a great day. Last night was not a good night. But I'll tell Bruce you stopped by again, all right?"

"Actually, I was here to see you," George said. "I promise I won't stay more than a minute. I did try to call but you didn't answer your phone."

He thought of his cell, abandoned upstairs. "Right. Sorry. What can I do for you?" And then he remembered the whole thing with the phone number, and George's business dinner. He probably wanted to talk about that, have some sort of ridiculous movie-person discussion. Clark winced. "It really does have to be short, I'm afraid, I have to get back upstairs."

"I understand," George said. "The truth is, I just wanted a chance to say thank you."

"Okay, sure," he said reflexively. "For what?"

George had stepped down into the room, keeping his hands in his pockets. His face still looked serious, and Clark began to wonder if something was wrong in movie-star land. "I wouldn't have thought anything of it," he was saying. "Just another lame joke. But the look on your face, when Bruce made that crack about being Batman. I've never seen anyone's face look like that."

"Oh," Clark said. "Ah. . ." Holy shit.

"It stayed with me all evening, for some reason. I kept thinking about it. I woke in the middle of the night and realized what that look was."

Clark let the mail drop back onto the table. "Ah," he said, because on two hours' sleep that was all that came to mind. 

"Ever had a moment like that?"

"Um," Clark said. He was really doing spectacularly here. 

"Anyway. I'm leaving town in a few hours, and I guess I wanted a chance to say what not many people get a chance to. I wanted to say thank you, for everything you do. Thank you for what you do to help people. Thank you, Superman." 

He extended his hand. Clark blinked at him, and George just looked steadily back. Clark was uncomfortably aware that he looked, at this moment, very much like Superman. His glasses were God knew where, and his hair wasn't brushed forward covering his face like Clark Kent usually kept it at the office, but pushed back off his forehead. His T-shirt was snug, and his upper body wasn't hidden behind layers of button-down and suit. The part of his brain that had the strength to obfuscate was numb and unresponsive.

Clark took his hand and shook it, reluctantly. This was where he needed to be telling George Clooney he was wrong, wrong, wronger than wrong. This was a very public figure, who knew a hell of a lot of other very public figures, and now Bruce's identity and his own were about to become public knowledge. He had a flash of his face smeared across tabloids, of his work, his life, becoming impossible. Having to live at the Fortress just to be away from it. All of Bruce's family destroyed—the boys gone into hiding, Gotham without her defenders, Bruce's last months spent dodging the ring of paparazzi at the gates. . .

"Please believe me," George said quietly, "when I tell you I know something about the importance of privacy. This conversation doesn't happen anywhere else, ever again. We'll never mention it again."

"All right," he said. 

"Such an obvious thing, and I never saw it. I guess that's the way it always is, though. How is he?" Something in George's somber eyes looked like he really wanted to know.

"Not. . . not good. He's. . ." Clark shook his head. "It's just not good."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yes. Well."

"I'm also sorry that I never actually knew him. I knew enough to know I wasn't seeing the whole picture. I guess that's what fascinated me about him. There was what you could see on the surface, but I always got the sense there were layers upon layers. I had hoped that maybe I was digging a little deeper than most, but now I realize I was never that fortunate. He wasn't—"

"Please stop using the past tense," Clark said, and George stilled. 

"I'm sorry," he said, and he looked it. 

"Well," said Clark. He looked down at the stack of mail. 

"I'll get out of your hair now. I just wanted to say thank you. I wish I could say it to him, but at least I can say it to you. And also I wanted to let you know that if you need anything, please give me a call. I left my card in the front hall, if you want it. You can reach me anytime. What you're doing is not easy, I know."

"Do you," Clark said, more sharply than he had intended. "I don't know why everyone has all this sympathy for me. I'm not the one in pain. I'm not the one dying. Have you ever watched someone you love in that kind of pain?"

"I haven't, no. But I have some imagination. It's how we airhead movie stars make our money." 

Clark gave a snort of a laugh and then realized what a perfect echo it was of Bruce. A hot knife of longing to see Bruce stabbed his chest. Bruce needed to be waking up, they needed to be facing this day and making decisions. He rubbed at his forehead. "Listen, I. . . have to get upstairs. I can't. . . I don't know what to say here."

"Don't say anything. Please give him my best." 

George stuck out his hand again, and Clark shook it, again. Then he was gone, his brisk step heading out the way he had come. Clark let out a sigh. Leslie had been right about one thing: he had not been prepared for this. Someone should have said to him, the weirdest aspect of this journey is all the strange conversations you are going to be having in the next four months. 

Funny how there weren't any books that prepared you for any of this. It wasn't like you could go to the bookstore and buy a book called _So The Center of Your Universe Is Collapsing, And Other Strange Tales_. He tucked the personal mail into the back pocket of his jeans and headed up the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose this means I have crossed into the morally nebulous shadowlands of RPF?


	8. Talking to X-Tube

Clark stared at the slide, holding it up to the light. He didn't need the microscope, though he always checked himself through its lens afterward. "Damn," he swore, and tossed that slide on the heap with all the others. 

He should head back upstairs; Bruce would be wondering where he was, even though Dick was with him. But he hadn't yet tried the full range of temperature variations. He could warm the samples another five degrees, and see where that got him.

"Absolutely nowhere, that's where," Leslie had said day before yesterday, when he had mentioned this to her. 

"We don't know that for sure," he had replied.

"Clark. Yes, we do. Or at least, I do. And by 'I' I of course mean every recognized medical authority in the world. _You_ don't know it, because you refuse to accept facts here."

"I'm just exploring all possibilities."

"We have been round and round about this. For the nine thousandth time, Clark, transfusions of Kryptonian blood are not going to be of medical help to anyone. It doesn't matter what you do with your blood. You can boil it, bake it, fry it up in a pan, inject it into Bruce's brussel sprouts, make a milkshake of it for all I care. Kryptonian blood cells are never going to be anything but toxic to a human host, and that is the end of it."

Watching his cells swimming on the slide now, attacking and destroying Bruce's cells like angry interstellar warships, he was forced to agree with her. The results were always the same: leukemic cells were defeated and destroyed by Kryptonian cells within seconds, every time, but so were all human cells within reach. There didn't seem to be a way to teach his cells what to attack and what to leave alone—they just wreaked destruction wherever they went. 

"Maybe our scale just isn't large enough," he had said to Leslie. "We've only ever looked at the interactions on a slide. An actual transfusion of my blood—"

"Would cause instantaneous convulsions, systemic hemorrhage, and cardiac arrest within minutes. And excruciating pain along with it, by the way. So by all means, if you have some enemy you'd like to do in, shoot him with 10cc's of Kryptonian special there. In the meantime, stay away from my patients."

"Yeah yeah," he muttered now, leaning back in Bruce's chair. 

He was down in the cave, because Bruce's lab facilities were state of the art, and there was no better and more private place to work. Besides, he didn't have to worry about Bruce discovering him down here. Even if Bruce had been able to get here on his own, he wouldn't have. He hadn't come to the cave since his treatments began, and whenever Clark had suggested it, he had been met by curt refusal. Maybe it made things easier that way, if he didn't have to look at what he was leaving behind.

"It's a comfortable chair," he said, leaning back further and spinning in it a little. "I see now why you never would let me sit in it, you selfish jerk."

Who the hell was he talking to? The Bruce in his head? The Bruce upstairs so blitzed on the drugs he no longer knew where Clark was in the room, much less who he was? Or maybe the Bruce who had never really existed, the Bruce who. . .

He shook his head and bent over his next set of slides. Bruce would critique his sloppy labwork, that was for sure.

 _What the hell do you think you're doing, Kent? This is advanced medical technology you're dealing with, not a sixth grade science lab._

"Well," he muttered, "maybe if _some_ people would be a little less obsessive-compulsive about the neatness of their work area, _other_ people might be able to find things without having to turn out every single drawer. Ever think of that one? No, you did not."

As if in answer to his thoughts, his cell buzzed. It was Bruce. _Stay out of my things_ , it read and Clark laughed aloud. Who knew what extradimensional sense Bruce had, but he sure as heck knew when Clark was rummaging around in the cave. 

_I'll be up in a bit_ , he texted back, pleased that Bruce was awake and aware enough to be irritated at him. More than just awake, as it turned out; he was sitting up in bed with his laptop beside him. No sign of Dick, who must have gone home. And there were strange noises coming from the laptop, which he had heard coming down the hall but which he couldn't quite make sense of. It sounded like. . . well, that wasn't really possible.

"What are you watching?" he asked, frowning at the laptop.

"Porn." In answer to Clark's astonished gaze, he tilted the screen Clark's direction. He wasn't lying: it was porn, all right. Clark quickly averted his eyes and tried not to hear the muffled sounds coming from the screen. Bruce did not have many filters on these days, and was likely to do and say. . . unusual things. Or say whatever he was thinking, at any given moment. 

"You, um. . . mind if I ask why?"

"I don't know, Clark, why do people usually watch porn?"

"Because they, um. . . I. . . why don't I just go back downstairs for a bit." He fought the blush he could feel creeping up his neck.

"Oh, relax. It was just an experiment. I wanted to see if my body could react at all."

"Well. . . any luck?" 

"Stop pretending you can't tell," Bruce said, and Clark looked quickly away from the blanket lying flat on Bruce's lap. "It's just as well, I suppose."

"Sorry," Clark said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Do you mind, ah. . ." 

Bruce closed the laptop, and the sounds stopped. "It's only for a little bit more," Clark said. "Last treatment is tomorrow, and then the chemo, but within a few weeks after that, your system should be back to normal."

"I know. I was just wondering if there was any possibility. Sometimes at the end of a cycle, before I begin a new one, I start to feel interested in sex again, so I was just curious to see if my body could follow through. But I think we can both see the answer to that one."

"Sorry," Clark said again. 

"Longest dry spell of my life," Bruce said.

"Well, you did spend several years in a monastery."

That got him a quirk of eyebrow. "Your point?"

"Ah. . . okay, please let's not talk about _that_ any more."

Bruce's smile was tired. "It's sad, isn't it. One last cycle of treatment, and then that's the end of hope, but all I can think about is, when do I get to feel like a man again."

Clark shook his head. "Bruce. You could be sliced off at the waist, and it wouldn't make a difference. There's more manhood in your left earlobe than in the rest of the world combined." 

"And here I thought the right earlobe was my best feature."

Clark's smile met Bruce's. It felt so good, to sit here in the circle of lamplight having a more or less normal conversation with Bruce, the two of them in the quiet. Clark took his hand and held it, because Bruce no longer objected to that sort of thing.

"I haven't thanked you," Bruce said. "For delaying this treatment a few days. I couldn't have done it."

"I know."

"Leslie give you grief?" 

"Nothing I can't handle."

"I believe it."

Clark squeezed his hand and released it. "So," he said, with a glance at the laptop. "I'm kind of surprised you don't have some sort of netblocker here at the Manor, to keep the boys from doing exactly what you were doing."

Bruce made a face. "You've got to be kidding me. That's a terrible idea. You don't teach healthy sexuality by pretending bodily needs don't exist."

"Worked for me," Clark said lightly.

"Mm hm. Which is why you can't talk about porn without turning fifty shades of red."

"That's not. . . I am capable of talking about porn."

"Really."

"Really. For instance, I was just about to ask you what exactly you were watching."

"Just now?"

"Yes. Just now."

"Masturbation."

Clark swallowed, and he knew from the twitch of Bruce's lip that it was audible. "Oh. . . okay. Why. . . that, specifically?"

"You mean, instead of full-on sex? Because I like it, that's why. Because when they're getting themselves off, people aren't faking anything. They're not doing anything they don't want to do. It's just about the pleasure. You can watch someone give themselves up to the pleasure, see that happen. You can see the point where they stop thinking about the camera and just think about getting off. I like it because it's hot."

Clark fought the need to swallow again. "I can see that," he managed. He was uncomfortably aware of the way Bruce's words made the blood rush to his own groin. It was just that it made him think of Bruce, and of what Bruce was doing when he watched. . .that. . . on the screen. Yeah, he could understand that reasoning. He licked his lips. 

"It's also the only way to watch women. In most porn, women are there to be objects, to please the man, and there's no focus on their pleasure. If you want to see a woman actually get off, you need to watch her do it herself."

Swallowing was no longer possible, because his throat had constricted past all hope of movement. "That makes sense," he croaked. "So, you like watching women."

"I do."

"And. . . men?"

"I like watching men too. It depends on my mood."

"You don't like one better than the other? If you had to choose, I mean?"

Bruce's eyes were knowing. "Are you asking me my baseline sexual preference?"

"I. . . no, I didn't mean to. . . that's not any of my—"

"Male."

He was genuinely surprised at that. "Okay," he said. "Well. You sure sleep with a lot of women."

"I did, back when I had a sex life. Sleeping with women makes emotional detachment quite a bit easier."

Clark found nothing to say to that. This conversation was a terrible idea, one of the worst ideas he had ever had. He wasn't looking at Bruce anymore. "You need to get some rest before tomorrow," he said. 

"I know." 

He rose and tidied the room in silence, aware of Bruce's eyes on him. Brought fresh water, organized his meds, ordered the bed. Bruce just watched him. "You think you'll need me tonight?"

"No, I'll be all right. Go get some rest."

"Okay then." Clark stroked the dark head, just once, just the tips of his fingers. "Sleep well."

"Clark." 

He turned at the foot of the bed and saw Bruce just sitting up in bed, staring down at the blanket. "What—"

Bruce reached to the other side of the bed and flipped the blanket back. He remembered that gesture. It was the same one he had made in his own bedroom, in what felt like another lifetime ago, that night Bruce had come to tell him about his diagnosis, spinning his story of Thomas Wayne and Joe Chill and a suicide gone terribly, horribly wrong. He still didn't know what to believe about any of that. And Clark hadn't known why he was there at first—could only think of one reason, really. He had turned the sheets back, just like that. An invitation, but not an obtrusive one. Bruce wasn't even looking at him. 

Clark stood there so long, frozen, that he saw the uncertainty in Bruce's hand. Saw him pull his hand back. A muscle jumped on the side of his face, but he still wasn't looking at Clark. "I just don't want to hurt you," Clark whispered. 

"You can't," Bruce said. "You won't."

With shaking fingers, Clark pulled off his shirt. He climbed into the bed opposite Bruce. For a second it flashed through his mind that maybe this was all Bruce had wanted, was a warm body in bed beside him, just some comfort in the night. He rolled toward Bruce, reaching a tentative hand for him. Bruce was just looking at him, every part of him, with hungry eyes. Clark angled his face toward Bruce's.

"Turn over," Bruce said softly.

Clark rolled to his left side. Warm arms came around him and he leaned back into Bruce's touch. Bruce's fingers were at his fly. He was already half-hard from their talk a few minutes ago. Bruce would feel that, could probably feel it now. "This I can still do," Bruce said in his ear. "Come on, let me."

Bruce's fingers were warm around his cock, and it had been so long since anything but his own hand had touched him. Who knew why Bruce was doing this now, but he didn't care. Bruce was spooned up against him, cradling him. Bruce, Bruce was touching him, so tenderly, so reverently, and yet with such firm sure strokes on his cock, and no, no, he was going to come too soon unless Bruce slowed down. He arched and reached for Bruce, desperate to touch him, but knowing he shouldn't—that skin was paper thin now, and bruised if he knocked against a glass of water. Clark made his fingers clutch the sheets instead. 

Bruce's mouth was kissing his neck, traveling around to his jaw, sending shivers up and down his spine. Clark twisted in his arms, trying to reach his mouth. Bruce jerked his head sharply away. "I—sores," he said, and Clark knew it was a lie, he wasn't having trouble with sores this week, but he took what Bruce had to give and didn't ask for more. 

"I can still make you feel good, can't I," Bruce was whispering. "Tell me I can. Tell me it feels good."

"So good," groaned Clark. "I'm going to come, but I—don't want to."

"Want me to slow it down?"

"Yes—yes please."

"So polite, even in bed," Bruce said, his baritone warm and richly amused. "Wonder what you'd sound like, if you ever really lost it."

"I don't—hunh—"

"Why did you never?"

"Never—never what?" His brain was blinking on and off now, with each stroke of Bruce's hand. Too late he remembered the unlocked door, and the possibility that Alfred could barge in at any moment. 

"Shh, don't worry about it. Just concentrate on this. Feels good?"

"You have—no idea."

"I remember. My body remembers—all of this—" Bruce was kissing his shoulder, licking at him, biting him, and those talented fingers had strayed to his balls, and lower, lower. 

"God," Clark panted, and he felt the quiver of Bruce's skin behind him.

"I'm sorry I can't fuck you. Is this enough?"

"Yes—yes—please don't stop—"

"Never," Bruce breathed into his neck, and then hot lightning curled in his balls and spattered his chest. 

"That's it, that's it sweetheart, let me have all of it. Let go for me, let go."

Clark bent and writhed and tried not to hurt Bruce. Bruce's hand knew about his climaxes, knew they didn't stop after the first wave. No one could do this for him like Bruce, no one ever had. The second wave hit, and the third, and somewhere in the middle of his fourth peak he was wrung and destroyed, and he sank back onto the bed and Bruce's arms, struggling for breath.

Bruce was over him, looking at him. Bruce's eyes, always intense, had become gray embers in his thin face. They devoured every part of him. Bruce lifted a hand like he wanted to touch Clark's skin, but ghosted it along him like he was a work of art. He bent to a thick splotch of come on Clark's hip and licked it, swalowing it down. 

"Gross," Clark said, and he felt the warmth of Bruce's chuckle against his hipbone. 

"Beautiful," Bruce said. Clark felt his eyes drifting shut, though he fought to stay awake. He would have been fine except for how little sleep he had gotten in the last few days. Few weeks. Few months. Used to be he would lie in bed and have to wait close to an hour before sleep came, when his brain had finished running on all its hamster wheels. These days, he tipped over onto the pillow and was gone.

"I need to get to bed," Clark whispered. The back of Bruce's hand was lightly stroking his thigh, and Bruce was propped on his elbow, watching him. 

"It's all right, you can sleep here."

Clark looked at him. "You used to say that was a very bad idea."

"I used to say a lot of goddamn things."

Clark reached for Bruce's hand and held it in his. "You ready for tomorrow?"

"Ready as I'll ever be."

"It's an elevated dose."

"I remember."

"Bruce."

"Mm."

"If you want to stop, we stop."

"Really." Bruce stretched back on his pillow, pulling the blankets over them both. "I don't think that's what you told Leslie."

"It's what I'm telling you."

"It's just one more dose. It isn't even—" He rolled over and tugged the blankets even higher. Clark reached around and pulled another blanket on, because he knew the signs of a chill. It had been too much for him, this sort of activity. He had been selfish and let it happen when he should have stopped it.

"I can go warm some blankets if I need to," he whispered.

"It's fine. I'm fine. Clark."

"Mm?"

"I think it would be better if you were in your own bed."

"Sure," he said, and rose lightly, pulling his shirt back on, re-ordering his pants. Bruce was curled tightly under the covers. Clark could see his open eyes reflecting the firelight. No matter how warm it got outside, there was always a fire in this room, where Bruce's body refused to warm him.

Back in his room, sleep was as elusive as it had been months ago, mainly because of his search for heavy objects to beat himself with, if it would do any good. How in God's name could he have let that happen? Had he really just crawled into bed with his terminally ill friend and let him get him off? Had he lost his moorings that far? It was the damn pornography, was what it was. It was because Bruce had been watching that stupid x-tube, and it had messed with his head, which was already drug-addled enough. That would explain why he was all over Clark one minute, and remote as a mountain the next.

It didn't explain, of course, why his own body was still interested. 

He tried to will it away, but it was no good; as far as his cock was concerned that had just been round one of an all-nighter, and it was flooding his brain with happy fun-fun images of Bruce watching women masturbate or having wild Tibetan sex orgies or jacking off to porn, which. . .

With a sigh he pulled his laptop out from under his bed and opened up a browser window. One thing was clear: the internet had destroyed his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I was working on this the other day, [this hilariously relevant post](http://theconspicuousninja.tumblr.com/post/72193972179/commanderabutt-cynically-colorblind) cropped up on my dash.


	9. Talking to God

"Sugar," Bruce said, making a face. He set the coffee back in the cup holder. 

"Well, I'm terribly sorry. I said no sugar, you heard me say no sugar, so what do you want? You want me to drive back to the window and demand black coffee, is that what you want?"

"I didn't say that."

"Sometimes fast food workers make mistakes. They're making less than minimum wage thanks to asshole lobbyists and greedy billionaire corporatists, and mistakes get made when you're exhausted and overworked. But by all means, let's drive back and torture some poor woman who is worried about how to pay her rent and buy groceries this month because the lips of His Imperial Highness will mortify if they touch sweetening product."

The car was silent. He could feel Bruce's eyes on him. "Feel better?"

He chewed on his lip. "Yes. Sorry. I'm just a little anxious, I guess."

"For God's sake, there's nothing to be anxious about. There are no surprises that are going to come out of this appointment."

Clark drove in silence, glancing at his watch. They should have started earlier. They could still make it on time if traffic was in their favor. Should have flown them, he should have flown them. Bruce would never have allowed it though. "Will you relax," Bruce muttered in irritation, looking out the window.

"I am relaxed. I am making conversation."

Bruce drummed his fingers on the car door. "Greedy billionaire corporatists like me, you mean."

"I didn't say that."

The silence fell again, and they waited through the light without speaking. "The fast food wage crisis," Bruce said after a while, when they had made the turn onto East Central. "That sounds like something you're researching for work."

"It—not really."

"Well, maybe you should think about it."

"I have a lot of other things to think about right now."

"You could pitch it to Perry. I'm sure he would give it to you."

"That's—probably not."

The car was quiet again, as they waited at the light to turn into the south parking garages at Gotham General. "Do you need to get closer? I can drop you off if you want, if you'll wait for me."

"I'm fine." And he really was, was the thing. The last of the chemo had finished three weeks ago, and the drugs were out of his system now. He was still rail thin, but a little less terrifyingly gaunt, and he had his strength back. He had daily functioning back, like dressing and walking down stairs and the thousand and one things he couuld now do, all the little things that made a life. He was Bruce again, for a little bit, anyway. 

He pulled into the dark of the parking garage and realized Bruce had been studying him, for the last few minutes. "When did he fire you," Bruce said quietly, when Clark had turned off the car. "Assuming we can dispense with the lying." 

"About six weeks ago," Clark said. 

Bruce covered his eyes. "He didn't have a choice," Clark continued. "I didn't leave him much of one. He gave me all the leave he could, but there's corporate re-organization going on, much tighter scrutiny from the board. . ."

They both knew why that was, and whose corporate merger was causing that re-structuring. "It doesn't matter," Clark said. 

Bruce made a noise in his throat he couldn't decipher. "Doesn't matter," he said. 

"It doesn't. Please let's not talk about it any more. You have your appointment to think about."

"Your entire life. Everything you've built. Your career. Your writing, the issues you care about. You throw that away because it doesn't _matter_?"

"No one threw anything away!" He lowered his voice. "Please, I didn't throw anything away, and I wouldn't do anything differently. Now can we please just get out of this car and go see Leslie."

"How are you paying your rent? Have you lost the apartment? Your car?"

"For heaven's sake. No, I'm fine, I have savings I can live on for a while, it's not like I ever spent that much anyway. Of all the things to be worrying about now—"

"Now is as good a time as any."

"It's not. Really, it's not. We can talk about it later, just not now."

"We don't have to talk about it, because I'm calling Perry White the second we get home."

"No you won't," Clark said angrily. "You're not my mother, and I don't need a note for the gym teacher. Don't be ridiculous." He could see from Bruce's face he wasn't going to leave it. "Look. There are a million things I can do other than write for the Daily Planet."

Bruce was shaking his head. "It was my responsibility. I should have asked sooner. I should have been more aware—"

"No, you shouldn't have, because it wasn't your responsibility. Bruce, of all the people in this world you have to worry about, I promise you I am not one of them."

They sat in silence again—or rather, he sat there and glanced at his watch while Bruce brooded. He knew well enough Bruce would not be prodded out of a brood; it was best to give him a few minutes to get beyond it, to swim through whatever complicated morass of emotions he stewed for himself and come out on the other side. 

When there was only five minutes left to make it to Leslie's office, he said, "We need to get going." Bruce nodded but didn't move. 

His face was still as furrowed as it had been a few minutes ago. "Hey," whispered Clark, and he reached for his hand. Without looking, Bruce jerked away—the old instinctive flinch from contact. 

"Right," Clark muttered. "Because of course." And then, because he was as bad at leaving a thing as Bruce was: "Not sweetheart anymore, I guess."

"What?" 

"You called me sweetheart before, in your bed, with your hands on me. It would just be nice if I could have some advance warning, you know, just so I could plan ahead. Maybe a note on my door: On these days I will get you off in my arms and on these days I will act like your touch carries flesh-eating bacteria, but _God_ forbid I try to kiss you because—"

" _What_?" Bruce said again. 

"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about just because we are finally talking about it. So let's talk about how I'm _sweetheart_ when you want to feel like a man, when you need something from me, but could give a damn about me when you don't."

Bruce was looking at his hands. "I thought you understood." 

"Understood what, Bruce? Understood _what_?"

"I can't. . . kiss you."

"So I've noticed! Maybe if you didn't periodically try to have sex with someone you can't bear to touch—"

Bruce's arm smashed into the door of the car. "I am trying to _die_ here!" he shouted. "Don't you fucking understand that?" 

His fist smashed into the door again, and his voice was a hoarse yell echoing in the car. "You _tell_ me how I kiss you and die, you _tell_ me that! You are _life_ , and you are _everything_ I want, and how the hell do I manage to die if I remember what it's like to kiss you, how the hell do you expect me to walk away—how can I hold it together if—I asked you to HELP me die, and all you make me want is LIFE, damn you, I can't DO this if you're going to—"

The fist smashed into the door again, and then again, and then Bruce tore open the door, got out, and slammed it behind him so the car shook. Clark could feel him leaning on the car with both hands, trying to get control. He shut his eyes. He couldn't hear anything over the hammering of his own heart, and the even wilder hammering of Bruce's. 

Slowly he got out of the car. Bruce had his breathing under control, and wasn't looking at him. "I'm going to go to this appointment," he said, "by myself. Wait for me if you want, go back home if you want." He walked off toward the elevators. _Stop, please_ , Clark tried to say, but every word Clark knew to say had died in the hollow of his own throat.

* * *

He stood in the garage for a while, pacing by the car. After a while he took the elevator too, and found a bench by the fountain in front of Gotham General's main entrance, to wait. The sun was warm on the wide plaza, the day golden. He sat there with his elbows on his knees and stared at the pavement.

Up in Leslie's posh office, Bruce was listening to the results of four months of torture. If they had been very lucky, they could have slowed the disease's inexorable progress. It was even possible he had added another six months to his prognosis. If it could just be a year, if he could have bought himself a year, it would have been worth it. Just anything, anything at all. Anything but Bruce sitting up there in that office, by himself, listening to Leslie tell him none of it had done any good. 

"Here's the thing," Clark said quietly. "I'm pretty sure I don't believe in you." He squinted up at the sky, as if maybe something up there was going to smite him, or laugh at him. But he had known better than that since he was six years old. 

"Truth is, if you are up there, if there is something controlling the universe, I haven't seen it yet. I haven't noticed you ever doing much for anybody else. Where were you when Darkseid was enslaving an entire planet, when Mongol destroyed whole star systems? I guess you were just busy those days, huh."

The water in the fountain rose and splashed. A couple of people with hospital bands on their wrist were sitting on a bench across the plaza, but there was no one else around. "And if you do exist," Clark continued, "I'm pretty ticked off at you. It seems like. . . it seems like you've left an awful lot for me to do around here, and I don't know, maybe you're on vacation somewhere. I guess after a while, outsourcing is the way to go."

He studied the join of his hands. "But please. Whoever you are, whatever language I need to use—Rao, God, Allah, All-Father. . . just, please. Help me help him. I'm not. . . I'm not doing so well. Just. . . no, scratch that. Forget about me. Just help him, all right? If by any chance you get back from vacation sometime in the next few months, could you please just. . ." He cradled his head in his hands and gave up. What an idiot. 

He hadn't thought to pray a month ago, when Bruce's final treatment cycle had gone so horribly, unbelievably wrong. Everything had seemed like it was fine: he had undergone the radiation, he had come home that night, and the next day the chemo had begun. But something had been wrong from the beginning—his constant monitoring of Bruce's blood pressure and heart rate told him something was off, but he didn't listen, didn't pay attention to his instincts, all he was focused on was getting that next drug into Bruce's already weakened system. 

They hadn't even been able to keep him on his back at all, the vomiting was so continuous. He slipped into unconsciousness the second night, and they couldn't rouse him. Clark was shaking him, desperately feeling for a pulse. Bruce was limp, his heart quiet, so quiet. . . And then he had heard the moment when it had stopped, when it was over, when Bruce's exhausted body was done. 

"Master Clark," Alfred had said, in that terrible whisper, and at superspeed Clark had raced for the syringe of epinephrine and without thinking plunged it into Bruce's chest, right at the cardiac muscle, but his hands were shaking, he wasn't doing it right, he couldn't—

"Alfred, what's happening?" 

Tim's face at the door had been alarmed, and he had glimpsed Damian behind him, but in one motion Clark had scooped up Bruce and the bedsheets together and zoomed for the windows, soaring high and fast and right at the emergency room of Gotham General. He had landed with a shattering spray of glass at the doors, protecting Bruce from the flying shards, knowing he had miscalculated that landing and might have hurt others, but Bruce's heart, Bruce's heart. Who cared what anyone thought, who honestly cared anymore, because if Bruce's heart had stopped the Earth's core was collapsing on itself, and he couldn't, he couldn't—

There were parts of that night he didn't remember. 

The trauma team got Bruce's heart rhythm stabilized, got his oxygen level up, did all the things Clark hadn't known how to do. It had been his mistake; they ought to have gone to the hospital hours before. That was the thing about being invulnerable, because after a while you began to believe there was nothing you couldn't do. 

Alfred had shown up with Dick, and Dick had practically shoved him against the wall. "What the hell happened, why didn't you call me sooner," he had said, and Clark had just shaken his head. 

Then had come long conversations with Leslie, sitting in those little plastic chairs in the intensive care waiting room. She had explained what things like DNR stood for, and used phrases like "being aware of all our choices." Clark just sat there with his arms crossed, not looking at her. 

"I think we sign it," Dick had said, when she had left them to talk. "I know he doesn't want to end like this, on life support, with tubes sticking out of him. You know that's not what he wants. She said the possibility that he might not regain consciousness. . . I don't know. I just know, he wouldn't want this. This is not what he deserves."

Clark said nothing. He had no contribution to make, when Dick and Alfred talked in low voices, nothing left to think. "We have to sign," Dick said, and finally Clark shifted and said, softly, "No."

"What?"

"I said, no signing."

He saw Dick's jaw tighten. "I understand this is hard for you," he said. "But this is about doing what Bruce wants."

"Not actually. It's about doing what's best for Bruce. What he wants and what's best for him are not always the same thing. You should know that better than anyone."

Dick's eyes narrowed. "Okay," he said, in his measured voice. "You've given your opinion. But I'm telling you what we're going to do." Clark caught Alfred's quick glance at him. 

"You're not," Clark said. "It's not your decision."

The room was thick with Dick's stare. "Say that again," Dick said. 

"I said, this is not your decision to make. I'm sorry."

Dick got up and walked the room, obviously trying to walk off his rage before he came back and stood in front of Clark. "Not my decision to make. You dare say that to me. This is my father we're talking about."

"Yes," Clark said. "He is. I'm sorry, but that doesn't change anything." And then he reached for the piece of paper folded in his jacket pocket, the one that had been there for four months now: _Medical Power of Attorney_ , it said at the top. _For Robert Bruce Wayne, held by Clark Joseph Kent._ And then several dense legal paragraphs, and the date, above their notarized signatures. The firm downward stroke of that "B."

"You motherfucker," Dick said slowly, reading it through. He looked up when he had finished it, like maybe he had been searching for a loophole in it. "I'll take you to court," he said. "I can fight you."

"You can," Clark agreed. "But I'll win." A phalanx of Wayne lawyers had made this document airtight, he knew that much.

 _I need it to be you_ , Bruce had said, when they had discussed it. Back when all of this had been so far away, so impossible. _You know I love Dick, but I need you to be the one making the decisions._

Clark tucked the piece of paper back into his pocket, ignoring Dick's rage-filled eyes. "No DNR," he said. "Bruce is still in this fight."

"Until when, exactly? Until _you_ decide he's had enough?"

"Yes," Clark said simply. "Until then." He walked away then, to give Dick his space. How would he have felt, at his own father's bedside after his heart attack, if someone had been there to wrest those decisions away from him? Dick was being calmer than he would have been, under the circumstances. 

He had gone back to the Manor then, to gather some things for Bruce. It was close to dawn by that time, and he was sleepless and distracted, walking along the upper hall toward Bruce's bedroom. He froze at the sight of the two figures on the window seat at the end of the corridor: Damian, curled asleep on Tim's lap. Tim's eyes were watching him. 

"Thanks for the phone call," Tim said, with soft menace.

"I'm sorry," Clark said. "Things got—crazy, for a while there. I should have let you know what was going on."

"Yes. You should have." Tim's hand rested protectively on Damian's back. His glare was a sharper echo of Dick's, which was in turn an echo of Bruce's. How long after moving in did it take to pick up Bruce's simmering scowl? 

"He's doing all right now, he's—"

"I know, Alfred texted. I'm up to date, no thanks to you."

Clark sighed. "I'm truly sorry, Tim. I don't know what else to say. Why don't you come down to the hospital with me, as soon as I grab some things for Bruce, all right?"

"Because I have a car of my own," he said, "and I don't need to be taken places like some child." Damian stirred on his lap.

"Drake?"

"Shh, it's all right. Clark's back."

Damian's head shot off his brother's lap. "You," he said. "The alien."

"Damian, I'm sorry I forgot to—"

Even his senses were taken off guard by the ninja blade smacked into his middle, and the small avenging demon flying through the air at him. The sword was heavy and broad, and Damian's grip on it nigh unbreakable. He had no doubt that on a normal person, that blade and the furious strength behind it would have bisected him. "Get out of here," Damian panted. He flailed at him with the sword again. "Get out, get out, we don't want you here! What are you even doing here!"

"Damian—" 

"Get away from me, how dare you attempt to touch me! You have no business touching me, or touching him! It's because of _you_ that he's sick, you've infected him with some deadly alien disease, you've _killed_ him, it's _your_ fault, it's yours, you've _killed_ him—" The sword battered at him, again and again. Clark stood there and took it, and only reached down to close his hand around the sword when it looked like the boy might hurt himself in his blind rage.

"Drake, help me, he's getting away, help me—"

Tim had his arms around Damian now, pulling him off Clark while his legs kicked wildly. "I'm sorry," was all Clark could say. 

"Hush now," Tim said firmly, holding Damian as best he could, and it was awful to watch, the way the boy arched and writhed like he was the one run through with a sword. His sobs were hoarse choking coughs. 

"Let me go—let me _go_ —I have to destroy the alien—he's _my_ father, mine, do you understand, he doesn't belong to _any_ of you, only to _me_ , get _off_ of me, let me _go_ —"

His body collapsed like the death of a small angry star. Tim cradled him, long strong arms and legs, making small shushing noises. Clark stood there immobile.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," was what he kept saying. It was what he had said all that terrible night, to everyone—to Dick, to Tim, to Alfred, to Damian, to Bruce. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered now, staring at the sun-spattered pavement of the hospital plaza, to whatever sort of God might be listening. 

He had failed at this, from first to last. He had wanted so much to help Bruce. Or had he? Maybe it hadn't even been that. Maybe he was just like Damian, in his own way. He too wanted to own Bruce, wanted to take a piece of him like everyone else. Maybe his care of Bruce had been just one more way to own him, to stake his claim on someone who didn't want to be claimed.

 _You're everything I want_.

Bruce had said that, in the midst of everything else. It was almost too much to take in, the thought that all this time, they might have been wanting each other, and unsure how to get there. The thought that Bruce could possibly love him as much as he loved Bruce was almost too painful. To have finally discovered that here, at the end of it all—it made him hate whatever imaginary God he was talking to even more.

He could do better. He would do better. For whatever time they had, he would do better. 

From where he sat, he could see Bruce walking toward him, across the too-bright plaza. Clark watched him, the steady, head-down stride. Clark stood. 

Bruce just stood in front of him, looking into the middle distance a little absently. He stroked at his chin, frowning a little. He put his hands in his pockets. He looked at the fountain. He looked at Clark. 

A slow smile spread across Bruce's face, like sunlight slicing through water, like nothing Clark had ever seen. Just the smallest of slowly spreading smiles. 

Clark stared at his eyes, tried to read it there. He did read it there. He just couldn't believe what he was reading. There weren't any words for what he was reading.

He wasn't sure if his arms moved around Bruce, or Bruce's arms moved around him first. He never did know. He just knew they were in each other's arms, and he was never going to move from this spot. 

There was a firm warm hand on the back of his neck, and then Bruce's mouth was on his. Bruce was kissing him, full-on and open-mouthed and hungry like Clark had never felt from him before. They were kissing each other, both of them shaking for no reason Clark could think of, and Bruce pulled away for just a breath of air before they were kissing again. Kissing like a second ago had only been the warm-up, and this was the real thing.

"You're kidding me," Clark panted, when he too needed air.

Bruce only laughed in answer. "No, really, you are goddamn kidding me," Clark insisted, but Bruce just pulled him in again and began kissing him, and no, this was the real thing, before had been the dress rehearsal. 

"We won," Bruce said, low in his ear, that small breath of laugh still in his voice, and Clark was the one who was going to pass out and need hospitalization, because no one ever got this lucky, this just didn't happen. 

"Here's the plan," Bruce said. The upquirk of smile on his lips was so beautiful, Clark had to kiss it again. Bruce had to put his hands on Clark's face to get his attention. "Listen to me. We go home and fuck each other's brains out." 

"Excellent plan. That is the best plan I've ever heard. We should fly." 

"What? Why, the car is right here."

"I'm teling you there's no way I can drive right now."

"There's no way you can drive, but you want me to hang on while you launch us at half the speed of light toward the corona of the sun."

"Just trust me, it's easier for me than driving."

"I am not going to trust you. Give me the keys, I will drive us home."

"That's ridiculous, it will take at least forty-five minutes in this traffic to get us there."

"No it won't, because I don't putter along at twenty miles an hour like some people. Are you going to give me the keys or not?"

"No, I'm not, because you are being childish and ridiculous, and I'm not going to sit in a car for forty-five minutes hard enough to drive nails. That's a terrible plan."

Bruce tipped his forehead against Clark's and began to laugh, and Clark was laughing too, and then they were kissing again. Bruce was kissing him, and the pavement was spinning, and someone in the hospital was surely going to call the police. 

"Alfred," Clark panted. "You should call Alfred."

"Already texted him. Don't stop." Bruce's lips were tender, sucking on his now, fingers stroking the back of his head.

"Dick? Tim?"

"Yes and yes."

They were kissing again, though it was more of a tangle by now. "God you're so hard, it feels—so good," Clark breathed, and here was where things were getting dangerous, because their hips were notched against each other now too. 

"Tell you where else it's going to feel good."

Clark made a noise that he hoped was more elegant than the throaty grunt he suspected it was, but it must have gotten his point across, because Bruce just pulled them closer, rubbed against him harder.

"Let's just get home before we come," Bruce said. 

"Say it's real. Just say the words so I can know, so I can be sure. Please say it."

Bruce smiled again, into his mouth. "Full remission," he whispered, and Clark swallowed the words like air, and swam through joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I am kind of at a loss for words when it comes to the incredible reader feedback I’ve gotten on this story, and by “incredible” I don’t mean “oh you are so awesome never change” kind of feedback (though don’t get me wrong, I love that kind too! I eat praise with a spoon) but the kind of feedback that wants to know MORE about the story, and pokes at me to talk about this thing more, to tell about that thing there. And the truth was, when I started posting this, the story was finished — until people kept asking questions. And those questions kept making me spin expanded narratives in my head, until I realized those were all part of the story, too. So. The result is, what was originally a substantial final chapter ten is now a hugely unwieldy chapter ten, and I am going to have to post it in several segments as I edit and tinker and catch my breath before the final plunge, I think. I am going to do my best to keep to my chapter a day schedule, and beg your forgiveness if I fail. In other words, I may have lied about the story being only ten chapters — but my point is, that’s YOUR fault. If you weren’t such wickedly smart clever interactive demanding perceptive readers, we wouldn’t have any of these problems, now would we? More story on the way! Quite a bit more story, actually. Make of that what you will.


	10. Talking to Bruce

_Creak. Creak. Creak_. Pause. And then it started again, rhythmically. _Creak. Creak_.

Clark rolled over and squinted an eye at the direction of the sound. And then he opened both eyes, because it was not a view to be missed.

Bruce was doing chin-ups on a bar in his dressing room doorway. Naked chin-ups, because it was three in the morning. Clark pillowed his head on his arms and watched the slow flex of Bruce's back, the perfection of those glutes. It was such a beautiful sight, and much as he would have loved a full frontal, this was a work of art. 

Of course, that wasn't what Bruce would see. Bruce would see only a body forty pounds lighter than he was used to. Strange as it was to see Bruce so lithe and lean, it was also compelling. Gorgeous. Unearthly. He could reel off adjectives all day long to describe Bruce's naked backside while doing chin-ups.

"You know," Clark said, his voice sleep-husked. "Rome wasn't built in a day. I think you're allowed to have one good night's sleep first."

Bruce swung himself down and walked to the table his laptop was resting on, scrolling down something. Clark tilted his head to appreciate this angle, too. "Come back to bed."

"In a minute. I've been doing some planning."

"Of course you have."

"My re-conditioning plan is almost finished, though I might need to tweak it some more." He uncapped a water bottle and chugged it down. "It's a combination of mental and physical re-conditioning, but I estimate sixteen to seventeeen weeks ought to return me to superior performance. Twelve to thirteen for excellent results, but nine weeks should take me to acceptable levels of functioning."

"I have found your levels of functioning to be very acceptable," Clark said, with what he hoped was a sexy leer, but Bruce just rolled his eyes. 

"You're not hard to please."

Clark rolled over and stretched. "True. Someone who was hard to please might object to waking up at three in the morning inside a Gold's Gym ad. Come on, come back to bed."

Bruce complied, crawling over him to get to his side of the bed, because Bruce was a particular little shit, apparently, about where he slept in the bed. That could be filed under unsurprising news. Bruce yanked the pillow up and settled himself. "I was thinking I could hire Shiva," he said.

"Hire Shiva. As in, the League of Assassins Shiva? That one?"

"Yes, that one. Do we know another?"

"Okay, I'll bite. What exactly do you want to hire Shiva to do?"

"Kill me," Bruce said equably, still working on his water bottle. He must have been awake and working out for a bit, because there was the faintest glisten of sweat on his upper body.

"Kill you."

"Not right away. Only after the nine week mark, maybe the ten. I ought to be sharp enough by then." He seemed to take in Clark's horrified stare. "I won't let her succeed, obviously. The point will be to evade her."

"You intend to pay her to try this." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just. . . give me a minute."

"I imagine this is the sort of job for which she would demand upfront payment."

"Look. Can't we just. . . enjoy being alive for a little bit? I was thinking maybe a vacation to a tropical island or something like that. Just a small respite before attempted assassinations. Is that so much to ask?"

Bruce looked meditative. "A deserted island might work well for this. A contained area, with no risk to others. Would you object if I multitasked?"

Clark's laugh shook the bed. "I'm laughing because I have no idea if you are joking or not, but I really suspect you are not. Listen," he said, hauling himself up and pinning Bruce on the bed. "You are out of your ever-living insane little mind if you think I am letting you place yourself in that kind of danger."

"Really," Bruce said, and something in his eyes went very dangerous. "Letting me." 

"Okay, obviously I misspoke. That was a poor choice of words." 

"Really."

"Bruce, don't—" He released his hold on Bruce as Bruce vaulted off the bed. "Please. I just almost lost you, I can't. . . try to understand."

But Bruce was only rummaging for another water bottle. He re-settled on the bed. "Don't be angry," Clark said, nuzzling at him. 

"I've been thinking about our living situation, too," Bruce said. Clark leaned back on his pillows. Of course, everything would have to be settled in six hours, because this was Bruce. And of course, nothing was going to be any different. It was going to be the same push-pull as it ever was, the same old cycle of can't-get-enough-of-you varied by get-the-hell-away-from-me. 

"Yeah," Clark said. "I figured."

"It's just that your bedroom here is probably not as comfortable as your apartment."

"It's not. Look, do we have to settle everything now? I can be out of the Manor as soon as you need me to, but for now can't we just go back to sleep for a bit?"

"I didn't ask you which one you wanted."

"I—which what?"

"Bedroom. You can have any of them, of course, but I admit I'm hoping you'll choose this one."

Clark folded his arms behind his head. "Really," he said. Bruce was not looking at him. "In your bedroom. You want me to move into your bedroom, and share your space. With you."

"Only if you want to."

Clark considered this. He considered what Damian would say to this development, or Tim, or Dick. "You don't owe me," he said.

"What?"

"I said, you don't owe me. What I did was exactly what you would have done for me. I don't need your gratitude, and you don't owe me anything."

"Of course I don't. I'm not sharing the dressing room, you'll have to get your own. You should also know I sent an email to Perry White."

"Goddammit Bruce."

"Curse all you want, I don't care. You screwed over your life because you didn't think you were going to need it, and you didn't think beyond my death. Well, I am most inconveniently not going to die. Giving you back your life is the least I can do. Bitch all you want."

"I'm not bitching. But when I am very clear on what I want, I expect to be listened to."

"Do you now. Well," Bruce said, and he was climbing over Clark now, pushing him down into the pillows. "I guess you should probably punish me, then."

"Mm," Clark said. Bruce was straddling him, beginning a nice slow rocking motion. "Should I now."

"You should."

"You realize I am actually angry about this. We are going to talk about this."

"Mm hm." Bruce was bending to his mouth now, kissing him, biting at the corners of his lips, almost. How could he ever have thought Bruce didn't like kissing? The man couldn't get enough of it. He had a hand bracing the back of Clark's neck to get him at a better angle. 

"You want to move? Or you like this?" Clark whispered into his neck.

"This."

They took it slow this time, pausing to keep the pace from getting too frantic, edging themselves a little. Given enough space and time, he was discovering Bruce had quite the taste for that. He didn't have much use for it; given that his body was going to come more than one time anyway, it didn't much matter to him when the first orgasm hit. But he found Bruce's self-denial hot as all hell to watch, and the gorgeous slack-jawed moan of his pleasure, when it came, made him grip Bruce's hips and shake.

They fell asleep more or less like that, Bruce draped halfway on top of Clark, and maybe that was something they were going to have to talk about, was how to find that happy medium between "never touch me or talk to me again" and "now I am going to crawl down your throat and render you incapable of breath and movement." Not that sleeping underneath a blanket of Bruce was uncomfortable. Every time he twitched in his sleep, Bruce would rouse slightly and tuck his limbs closer around Clark, like Clark had been the one who had almost died, like he was afraid Clark was going to slip away from him. 

When he woke again, the room was drenched in light, and for a second he thought that was why he had wakened, until he heard the faint buzzing on the floor. His pants, improbably close by. He reached for his phone and squinted at the text.

 _So, not that I don't appreciate the answer to my question. . ._ , Dick said. 

His question. What the hell was Dick talking about? And then another text came through, also from Dick: a link this time. Clark clicked it. His eyes widened. "Bruce," he said, shoving him off. "I think you're going to want to see this."

Bruce growled in protest and curled up under a pillow. There was a third text now, and then a fourth. _But maybe a little less with the visual next time, yeah?_ read Dick's text, and Clark groaned. A fifth text, and a sixth.

"Even George," Clark groaned. Bruce's head emerged from the pillow.

"Who?"

"Doesn't matter. I think you should take a look at this." And he pushed his phone under Bruce's nose, one of Dick's links open on it: a full-length picture of the two of them, making out like idiots in the middle of the Gotham General fountain plaza. _Bruce Wayne and unidentified companion_ , read the caption on one of them. Bruce burrowed back under the pillow with a grunt.

"That's all you have to say? Apparently these pictures are everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if—"

"Good morning sirs," came Alfred's brisk greeting at the door, tea tray in his arms. "I did try to give you as long as reasonably possible, but I think a little daylight is in order, don't you?"

Bruce gave another angry growl and burrowed deeper, away from the prying sunlight, as Alfred whisked back the curtains and set down the tray. Clark pulled the blankets higher and tried to pretend this wasn't embarrassing, tried to pretend this sort of thing happened to him all the time. "I thought you might care for the morning paper," Alfred said solicitously, as he spread the _Gazette_ open to the second page of the Metro section. He very thoughtfully smoothed the page so the picture appeared to best advantage.

"Alfred," Clark moaned. "It was an accident."

Alfred picked up the paper and squinted at it, turning it slightly. "Hmm. Could you describe the nature of the accident? Perhaps Master Bruce had dropped his car keys down your throat and was launching a search for them?"

"Alfred, I promise you we weren't—it was nothing like—"

"Tut tut, Master Clark. I know how newspapers can misrepresent these things. You don't have to remind _me_ what journalists are like."

"Oh for—"

But Alfred had swept out of the room, giving the curtain a final tweak on his way out the door. "Well now he really does hate me," Clark said, and the dark head beside him raised up.

"You idiot. If Alfred is giving you that level of sass, he adores you."

"Yeah? Really?"

"Really." The head dropped back down with a thud. "Now turn off that light."

"That light is called the sun. Dammit," he said, looking at the seventeenth or eighteenth text from Dick. "He is really enjoying this. I don't know what to do here, I don't know how to stop a pic that's going viral like this. Do you have any ideas here?"

"'S fine," was the muffled response. "I look pretty good in it."

"Oh really. Well, I'm happy for you. And how do you suppose I look now, after you sent that stupid e-mail to Perry about my job?"

Bruce's head came back up, and his eyes were lucid now. "Shit," he said. 

"You think?"

"I'm sorry."

Clark dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. Sure, he was "unidentified companion" for now, but that would probably change, with a little digging. Any shred of professional credibility he might have held onto had just been trampled into the ground, and they might as well go ahead and print _Bruce Wayne's Man-Whore_ under the pic, because that was exactly what Perry was going to think. This should really, really be upsetting to him. He should be life-destroyingly angry right now. He should feel something other than this curious lightness in his middle.

"Oh well," he said. 

"Oh well?" Bruce was beginning to look concerned.

"Yeah." Clark threw up his hands. "Oh well. I know I ought to be incredibly angry with you right now, or upset about these pictures. But I just don't care. Not this morning. I don't care about anything."

"Anything?" Bruce rolled back his direction and stretched across him. 

"Mm," Clark said with a smile, slipping lower in the bed. Bruce was working on his collarbone, but then his head came up with a jerk. 

"George who," he said. 

"Oh." Clark colored a little. "Your friend. The. . . actor person."

"George Clooney is texting you?"

"He. . . we became friends some, recently. You remember when he came by."

Bruce was squinting at him like he was out of his mind. "George came by?"

"Yes, he did in fact. And he was very nice, very kind. Wanted to help any way he could."

"I bet," Bruce said.

"We've talked a few times since then. He's been. . . it's just been nice to have someone to talk to."

"Has it now."

"Oh, don't be like that. You're underestimating him."

"Pretty sure I'm not the one who's doing that. Let's go back to the part where George Clooney moved in on my boyfriend while I was on my deathbed."

"I'm not your boyfriend," Clark scoffed.

"No," Bruce said. "That's true enough, isn't it." And he lifted Clark's hand to his mouth, and kissed it, on the palm, on the back, just taking his time with it. "I'm not sure of the word, actually. But I know that's not it."

"It will come to you," Clark said. 

"Yes. Whatever could it be. I wonder." He pulled Clark all the way down to him, rolling them over again, wrapping a leg around Clark to keep him still. 

Each time now, they were getting slower. It was almost as though they were daring each other, to take it slower, and then slower still. "I want to tease you," Clark whispered. "Roll over." He stroked up and down that long lean back. He cupped Bruce's ass, rubbed, brushed his hand over the swell of balls beneath. 

"Mm," Bruce said. His head was pillowed on his arms. 

"Think you can come without moving?"

Bruce reflected. "It depends."

Clark was sucking on his finger, getting it wet. He swirled it around Bruce's hole, felt the quick hungry clench. "On what?"

"On how good you are."

"I don't know," Clark whispered again. There was no reason to talk softly. "I don't know how good I am. I know I just want my finger inside you, making you come. Can I do that?"

"Fuck," Bruce panted, softer than a whisper. "Yes." He spread his legs a bit wider. Clark's finger, which had just been pressing, slipped inside. There wasn't much wetness left, but that just meant more friction. He could hear the slow release of Bruce's breath. 

"Don't move," he reminded Bruce. 

"That's how it feels good."

So he kept his hand still and reached with one finger for Bruce's gland, pressing hard and rubbing, just working his hand around. Bruce was humping the sheets, flexing and unflexing his ass. Clark pressed a hand on the small of his back. "Stop, just let me."

He heard Bruce still his breathing. "Pretend other people can see us," Clark said. "So you can't move. You just have to let me. You have to let me try to get you off. Be still."

"Clark," Bruce said. He didn't know what it meant, just his name like that. 

"Do you think you could come?" Clark said. It was just the one finger, but it was working him pretty good. 

"I—" Bruce raised his head, dug his fingers into the sheets, and Clark could feel it pulsing out of him. 

"Come on baby, let me milk you," he said, pushing that finger in harder. Bruce grunted, and Clark felt the suck of muscle at the base of his fingers. Bruce was soaking the bed. 

It occurred to him they were fetishizing each other's pleasure. That was why they kept going slower, that was why they kept wanting to get each other off. He eased his finger out and wrapped the hand around his own stiff cock, not bothering to wipe first. Not wanting to wipe. A few quick jerks, and he watched his come splatter Bruce's ass. He sank back with a boneless sigh, still rubbing, still remembering the feel of Bruce's clench.

"You didn't let me watch," Bruce was saying, watching him, a bit bleary-eyed.

"Sorry. Couldn't wait."

"Mm." Bruce rolled over with a grimace. "Shower. Ugh." 

Clark looked at the sheets, and the huge wet spot on them. "So that's a yes then."

Bruce was on his back, stretching like a lazy jungle cat. "Since I didn't get to watch, you owe me one," he said.

"I do, huh."

"The polite thing would be to make my payment available to me at my convenience."

"And if that wasn't convenient for me?"

"I see your point. I think the difficulty would be solved with a little recording. That way I could have it whenever I wanted it."

Clark raised his eyebrows. "You want me to make a sex tape for you."

"Yes." Bruce's eyes said he wasn't even kidding around. "If I asked, would you?"

"Yes," Clark said, his throat a bit tighter. A sex tape, like the things Bruce liked to watch. Like that porn he watched. "You'd want to watch that? Just me getting off?"

"On continuous loop." Bruce rose and headed to the bathroom. "You coming?"

"I thought you wanted to shower." He looked at Bruce looking at him. "Oh," he said. "Oh, okay." 

"There it is." 

"I just assumed you would want to shower on your own. Actually, I assumed you'd be getting tired of me by now. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd want a vacation. I've been on top of you for four mounths."

"I told you, a vacation sounds fine."

"Yeah, you, me, and the League of Assassins, I remember."

"Would it make you feel better if we did spend some time apart?"

"Maybe. It might be healthier. I just don't want you to feel. . . closed in."

"Okay." Bruce reached for his watch on the bedside table. "It's quarter to eleven right now. How much time do you want?"

Clark folded his hands and considered. "Hey I just remembered something," he said.

"What's that?"

"You're not going to die."

Bruce gave him that same smile, the one that tilted one end of his mouth. It was like Christmas morning, every time he remembered it. He didn't think his chest could hold it in. "Some day," Bruce said. "Not this week. Come on, get in the shower, you're disgusting."

"You're more disgusting than I am," Clark pointed out, swinging his legs over.

"And whose fault would that be," Bruce called from the bathroom, where he was fiddling with the knobs. Another gust of joy caught Clark in the middle, and he knew he was doing the smile thing, too, the same one Bruce was wearing. Maybe it was one they would have their whole life, that smile: the one that said, we won. The one that knew the same secret Clark did. 

Tomorrow—heck, later today, probably—there would be more talk of assassins and Gotham and re-conditioning and the League, more returning to their lives as they had once been, as they might be again. It was too much to expect that Bruce would stop being Bruce, even for half a day, even after the kind of reprieve he had been granted. Bruce would just take it and work even harder, push himself more, become more a slave of Gotham than he had been. Well, that was okay; they were never going to not be themselves.

"Hey," he called. "Your cell." He glanced at Bruce's phone, lying face up on the table, and the text on it. 

_I heard you kept your promise_ , the text read. From an unidentified number. _Is that just you being a spiteful cocksucker, or could we be having a breakthrough here?_

Not much doubt who it was, not with language like that. "I will never understand that kid," Clark sighed, and headed off to the shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Batman really did [hire Shiva to kill him once](http://yellowcape.tumblr.com/post/68861621955/knightfall-knights-end-shadow-of-the-bat-29), after he had been in a wheelchair and needed to get into shape again. I did not even have to make that part up. I like to imagine the haggling over that job.


	11. Conversations End

Those were the happiest days of Clark's life, that golden time when the world was bathed in the glow of their victory. Literally golden, because when he looked back on it, every memory seemed filled with slightly too much light — like a whole year of his life had taken place under a sunlamp. He would sometimes laugh, just for no reason, and sometimes Bruce would be doing something else, and the edge of his mouth would quirk up, just a little, and Clark knew it was the same for him. 

Everything that had once seemed so hard was now so easy. What had they been afraid of, all that time? It was hard to remember. If he thought a thing, he said it, and Bruce did the same. Bruce didn't cease to be irascible, and prickly, and in need of space, and prone to sharp remarks. But it was like someone had handed Clark the manual, or rather, the key to the manual he had always possessed, and now instead of puzzling over its pages with a magnifying glass, he could toss the book aside and navigate on instinct. He knew what Bruce meant to say, and what he didn't mean to say, and even quarrels slipped through their fingers like water.

He did move into Bruce's room, but he kept his apartment, too. In the end he was the one who needed the space, or at least, some pro forma reminder of his own life. He spent a few nights a week there, too, much to Bruce's irritation. "Going Alpha Wolf," Bruce called it, one night, and Clark had rolled his eyes behind his newspaper. 

"You're serious right now? You have a whole—" he waved his hand. "Underground rock formation, and I have a one-bedroom apartment."

"Not to mention an Arctic palace, but I guess we're not counting that. And the cave serves a purpose other than bolstering my threatened masculine autonomy."

Clark snorted and turned the page of the paper. "That didn't even make any sense. Besides, you're on patrol all night tonight anyway, what do you care where I sleep?"

Bruce glared at him over his coffee. "I like my bed warm when I get into it."

Clark laughed. "I'll keep it in mind, Master Bruce."

It was also the year of the Shavarrian incursion, and another attempted Atlantean revolt, and there was the hint and the rumor of an old nursery rhyme with sinister meaning, something about owls and a shadowed perch. They were both busy, working together and apart—though Bruce was typically determined that he and he alone would tackle these Owls. The first time Bruce was back in the Batsuit, Clark had to control his panic reaction. Where before he had seen the beauty, the sleek lethal menace of Batman, now all he could see was the danger, and he realized how messed up that was, and how angry that would make Bruce. There was no keeping Bruce safe, and he wouldn't insult them both by trying.

So the first time Bruce was out on patrol by himself, Clark did nothing. He didn't watch, he didn't spy on him, he didn't do anything that would have angered Bruce. He didn't do anything, in fact, but stand in the cave with his hands pressed against the wall, trying to control his shakes. He had never had an anxiety reaction before; hadn't even known that was possible, for him, physiologically speaking. It was his first experience of actual terror. 

When Bruce came back and found him waiting in the cave, white-faced and still, he had said nothing. He had pulled off his cowl and taken one look at Clark's face and body, and then pulled Clark into his arms. Clark shook and trembled there. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I'm sorry, I'm working on it, I'm trying, I'm sorry."

And instead of being met by Bruce's rage, Bruce had just kissed and stroked his bowed head and taken his hand, leading him to bed. Somehow, no matter how off their balance they got pushed, they could find their center again in the dark, in the quiet, in touch. But he knew that was no kind of longterm solution for his anxiety, so after a while, he found his way to where so many of them did, for one reason or another: Dinah's office.

"I know it's not rational," he said. 

"I disagree," she said. "I think your fears for Bruce's safety are completely rational."

"That's. . . not really comforting."

"It wasn't supposed to be." She was writing something on her notepad, peering at it over her reading glasses. He wondered how many people who sat in here had any idea they were sitting across from the most terrifyingly competent martial artist on the face of the planet. Well, most terrifyingly competent, with one exception. 

"I understand," he said, "it's just that I was hoping this would be where you would help me feel better about Bruce putting himself back in danger."

"That's not what I do," she said, not unkindly.

"You don't want to make me feel better?"

"Not particularly."

"That—are you—you're sure you're qualified to do this?"

She smiled. "So say those degrees on the wall. Clark. Something tells me the last time you talked to a professional about your feelings, you might have been in elementary school. I'm not the person you talk to when you're sad because your grandma died. That's not what I do."

"Fine," he said. "What is it you do, then?"

"I help you figure out why you're sad."

"Because my grandma died."

"Moving beyond our metaphor, I mean. I help examine the causes behind what you're feeling. That doesn't always make you feel better. In fact, I would say ninety percent of the time, it doesn't make you feel better. For instance, you might have the feeling that you constantly want to slice people open and eat their internal organs. I could help you discover that the reason for that feeling is, you're a sociopath. That's not likely to make you feel better about the situation."

"Okay," he said, shifting uncomfortably. He was beginning to think coming here had been a mistake. He should have been able to handle this on his own. He looked like an idiot, and now apparently he wanted to eat people, didn't know what the basic description of a psychologist was, and his grandmother was still dead. He rubbed at his forehead.

"Okay," he said again. "So, you're going to help me figure out why I worry about Bruce now, when I didn't before."

She tilted her head at him and gave him that same smile. "Why do you think you worry now?"

"Because I almost lost him, and I can't forget the reality of that loss, and plus, now we have. . . so much more to lose." He added that last part hastily, not looking at her, because in some part of his brain he liked to pretend that every single member of the League did not know what was going on between the two of them. 

"Yes, exactly."

"So. . . all right, I'm done now? Because that was the why, that was the reason. And since feeling better is clearly off the menu, I guess I'm all finished." 

She tapped her pen against her pad and tilted her head the other direction. "Were you this petulant in the guidance counselor's office?"

"I don't know. Probably. Look." He rose. "I'm sorry, this is not for me."

"It is if you want to be on the active duty roster of the League."

"What did you say?"

She capped the pen. "I have orders not to admit you to the League's active duty roster until you've undergone psychiatric evaluation and assessment." She looked regretful, but not remotely like she found what she was saying ridiculous.

"Orders," he repeated. " _Orders_ from whom?"

"From Batman."

"What—he—that isn't— _no_ ," he said, with an emphatic finger point at her that was probably not helping her impression of him as a nine-year-old. "First off—first off, Batman does not give orders to me."

"You re-defined personnel as strategy."

"I did _what_?"

"Batman is strategic leader of the League, and a few weeks ago you re-structured personnel decisions so they would fall under strategy rather than security. There was a lot of re-structuring. Most of it Diana's somewhat inventive ideas about expanded earth defense, but that was definitely in there too. All three of you had signed it."

"I did. . . no such thing," he said, remembering a pad hastily thrust at him by Bruce, a moment's scribble across it. . . that infinite bastard. That infinite, unbelievable bastard. 

"No, wait, coming to see you, this was _my_ idea," he said. "I. . . said I was going to come here and. . ." And then last week's conversation unspooled in his mind, and he remembered all Bruce's quiet attentiveness, the small leading comments, the strokes along his back as he was talking, just the hints, so it all seemed like his idea. . . 

"I'm going to kill him," Clark said quietly. 

"There you are, problem solved! You are no longer obsessively worried for his safety." He had the satisfaction of seeing her wince when he rounded a glare on her. "That was a little funnier in my head, I admit."

He stood there with his hands on his hips, weighing the thing he wanted to do (storm out the door, fly home and throttle Bruce) against the thing that would make this annoyance go away. "What do I have to do," he said. "For you to sign off on me here."

Her smile was back. "Sit," she said.

He complied, with murderous gaze. "You're a genius," he said to her. "You really are. I've gone from fixating on Bruce's safety to plotting his death in under ten minutes. Normally people have to actually speak to Bruce to manage that. How dare he—" He broke off and stared out the window.

"How dare he what?" she said curiously.

"Nothing."

"Well, when Batman gives me an order, I obey it. That's what strategy leader means. I probably wouldn't say, _how dare he_."

"Well," Clark said.

"But then again, I'm not you, am I? I'm not the most powerful being in the solar system."

"That's not what I meant," he said. "And I listen to Bruce's orders, just like he listens to mine. But this is beyond working in the field together, this is some ridiculous attempt to control me, and I thought he knew better than that."

"Thought he knew better than to think you could be controlled? Or thought he knew better than to try?"

"Both," he said, his voice louder than he had calculated. He was also no longer sitting.

"Sit," she said again.

That had been their first real fight, his and Bruce's, and it had been completely unsatisfying. He had ranted, he had stormed, he had raised his voice at Bruce and then he had ranted some more, using words like _underhanded_ and _manipulative_ and _domineering_ , and Bruce had just kept tinkering with whatever he was working on in the lab and replying in monosyllables. "This is about some sort of fantasy power trip, that's fine," Clark had finally said. "You want to play that game in the bedroom, I'm on board. But playing that out here, in the real world, where it matters—"

"You're not reliable," Bruce said, and this time he actually looked up. Clark gasped at the sword-slice of those words.

"Say that again?"

"I said, you're not reliable. I can't trust that if we are in the field together, you will make rational determinations about the safety of all of your team members. In an emergency, you're likely to make my safety your highest priority. That makes you a dangerous and unreliable team member, and that's why you're pulled from the League's duty roster until Dinah clears you or you discover the formula for Kryptonian xanax, whichever comes first."

Bruce pulled on his gauntlets, clearly planning to head back out on patrol. "Look, you'll do what you want, I know that. But until you have this under control, you'll work alone, without any League members you could jeopardize."

"How dare you. The safety of each and every member of my team comes first, and always has. When have I _ever_ risked, in the smallest way—"

"Never," Bruce said. "That's when. And I want to keep it that way for you, because you would never forgive yourself. Or me, for that matter."

Clark crossed his arms. "And just when do you plan on re-admitting me to the big kids' table?"

"When Dinah says you're ready. In the meantime, I'm sure there are lots of other things you could do. Kittens that need rescuing, old ladies to help across the street, that sort of thing. Go move some asteroids out of the way in another star system. Robin," he called, and the lithe little shadow materialized from the darkness of the cave's upper level. "Get down from there. We're heading back out."

A soaring leap and a perilous swing from a stalactite later, Damian had landed at their feet. He pulled his hood down and glared at Clark. "Superman," he said with a nod. It was a curt nod, but it was a nod of greeting nonetheless, and Clark returned it, rather more elaborately.

As the two of them headed off to the car, Clark said, "Robin." The boy turned. "Come here for a second, all right?"

"What is it?"

"I need you to do me a favor."

The lenses in the domino mask narrowed. "I'm listening."

"Will you watch out for him out there?"

"That's my job, alien. Robin is always watching out for Batman."

"I know that. It's just—I worry about him, and the worry is making me do not such a good job right now. I was thinking, if you could help me out. . . if I knew that you were going to be extra vigilant, maybe I could relax and do my job, too."

Damian looked like he was considering this. "All right," he said, with a glance at the car. "But you don't need to worry about _him_."

"I know that. It's my problem, not his. Can you help me with it?"

"Robin," Bruce called impatiently. Damian tapped his chin. 

"For a price," he said. 

Because of course. "And what price would that be?"

"Flying," Damian said, with a thrust of his chin at Clark. 

"Flying?"

"Yes. You take me flying. That's my price. And no one must know. I don't want anyone seeing us. And you'll do it without touching me more than you have to."

Clark pretended to think about it. "All right," he said. "I guess as long as no one knows about it."

"Robin!" barked Bruce. Damian swirled off in a blur of yellow and green, and Clark studiedly did not wait around for them to get back. He did a little flying on his own, but nowhere near Gotham, nowhere he might be tempted to check up on Bruce. After a few hours he tapped his communicator and waited until he knew Bruce was listening. 

"I'm sorry I went over the edge like that," he said. 

"Actually, you were calmer than I thought you would be."

"Does this mean I can yell some more?"

"If you like. But for the record, I think of our bedroom as a place that matters."

"What are you talking about?"

"You accused me of a fantasy power trip, and said that belonged in the bedroom, not in the real world, where it mattered."

"Okay, that. . . was probably not well-phrased. I didn't mean that. And I sure hope Damian's not around for this conversation."

"You're safe, we're back home."

Clark smiled involuntarily. _Our bedroom_ , Bruce had said. It was still enough to give him a small secret smile, to hear Bruce casually say something like that. "Well," Clark said, "I'm pretty busy. I think I see a kitten with hairball trouble in Singapore. I'd better go."

"Where are you?"

"Hundred sixty, maybe hundred eighty kilometers. Low earth orbit."

"You're going to get whacked in the head by a satellite at that height."

"It is a little crowded up here."

"Tell you what's not crowded," Bruce said. "My bed."

"Bruce. Tell me you understand that I'm more than just a little angry right now. You should have at least talked to me about it, instead of going through Dinah."

"Would you have been more likely to consent?"

"Possibly. Probably not. But you should have anyway." 

"If I say that I should have, will I get sex tonight?"

"Maybe. Probably, if I didn't have an early morning. Story meeting at 6:30, so I'm heading home in a few minutes."

There was a pause. "By which you mean Metropolis."

"By which I mean. . . that home, yes. And I haven't prepared for this meeting, so I need to not look like an idiot in a few hours. Catch you for lunch?"

He heard Bruce's sigh gust the communicator. "Fine. I think I liked you better when you were unemployed. Any chance I can get you fired from this job too?"

"Not for want of trying. I'll check in after my meeting, okay?"

"'Kay." Bruce was already sounding sleepy; he must have pushed himself hard tonight, too hard. Ruthlessly Clark clamped down on the spasm of anxiety. He would not ask what he had been doing, would not ask how many new bruises there were tonight. If he were there, he would wait until Bruce was asleep and then examine the bruises, monitoring them to make sure they looked normal, not too wide and spreading, coloration consistent. . . 

Because even when you'd made a clean getaway, you never stopped looking over your shoulder for the cops. 

More or less, his life had slipped back into place—or rather, into a better place. Not only was there his life with Bruce, but his professional life had changed for the better too. "I'm not giving you your job back," Perry had said bluntly. "That Wayne fellow can go fuck himself."

"With respect, I never asked for it back."

Perry's jowl had quivered as he chewed his lip. "That's right, you didn't," he said. "How come? Don't you want to work here? You got offers someplace else?"

"No, not really." It was something of a lie, but only a bit—there had been some interest expressed, though no solid offers yet. 

"Well like I said, I filled your job. You can forget about that."

"Perry, I wasn't coming here to ask for my job back, I promise. I really just wanted to thank you, for trying to make it work for me as long as you did. I appreciate it, and I wanted to say, I'm sorry I put you in a difficult position. That's the only reason I'm here."

"Oh," Perry grunted, and took out another cigar to chew. "So that's it," he said.

"That's really it."

"Because like I said, your job is taken."

"Perry, I—"

"But there's this other one, I was thinking you might be interested in looking at that." And Perry had tossed the job listing at him: city metro desk, section editor, Daily Planet. Clark looked at him.

"Section Editor," he said.

"Take it or leave it, I ain't gonna engrave the invitation. You ask me, it's only justice. I wanna see how you handle it when your best reporter decides deadlines are artificial constructs designed to stifle his genius."

"Perry. I've said I was sorry. And it wasn't that, at all."

"I know, kid." Perry's eyes were kind. "I know you were in a tough spot, with your uncle being so sick and all."

"Cousin," Clark said, shamed by his lie. "He's much better now."

"Well that's great kid, but are you gonna take this or not? Because I ain't got all day. And the truth is, I could use an ally around here. The suits are taking way too much interest in how I run my newsroom, and I need section editors I can count on to know the difference between a story and a reality TV fluffer. Assuming I can remember myself."

So he even got his life at the _Planet_ back, with a substantial promotion. The main comfort was that he was pretty sure Perry had never put two and two together about that picture of Bruce Wayne making out with some tall dark-haired guy, since Clark had never been identified in any of the pictures. That was some modest degree of anonymity he got to hold onto there, and it wasn't like he made public appearances with Bruce. Bruce Wayne needed to remain single, even if Batman was not. 

The boundaries between their lives remained intact, and for the foreseeable future, that was how it was going to have to be. He might be spending most of his nights at the Manor, in Bruce's bed, but that didn't mean he was at the breakfast table, or that he was an acknowledged part of Bruce's life with the younger boys. What they had was for them, not for other people. Only occasionally would Bruce push at those boundaries a little, like in his remarks about the nights Clark spent in Metropolis, or the times Clark would need to go off to the Fortress for days at a stretch. "I'm learning this, I promise," Clark said once. "Please don't give up on me."

"Never," Bruce said, folding him into his arms, bending Clark's head to his shoulder. "I'm not, sweetheart."

It was the endearment that always unbent him in the middle, that made his chest clench with tenderness. That Bruce could call him that, so unconsciously and easily. It was a continual shock to him that certain things were easier for Bruce than they were for him, but it made sense: having once decided on a thing, Bruce was going to throw himself into it without looking back. Maybe he had been so protective of his heart all those years for just that reason, and in chipping away at that wall Clark had had no idea the flood he would unleash. Sometimes he felt he was drowning in it, when they were in bed—all Bruce's strength and passion and focus, just for him, just on him.

 _I love you_ , he thought continually, but never said. After a while saying it would have felt false, like reading a road sign they had passed hundreds of miles ago. 

In those days, the road seemed endless.

* * *

"Nice one, babe," Oliver called from the sidelines, and Clark tilted his head, watching the combatants. 

"I think that might be considered distracting," he said.

"What, distract her? Not hardly. She'll remember I exist in a few minutes, but not when she's in the zone like that. Ouch," he winced. "That's gotta hurt."

They were standing at the edge of the combat ring in the Watchtower's gym, watching Bruce and Dinah circle each other like sharks. Or maybe jaguars, Clark thought as he watched, because their attacks were precise and lethal and strangely graceful. "If you need practice, I could spar with you," he had suggested, and Bruce had just cocked a brow at him. "I could," he had protested. "I could hold my own. No powers, I promise."

"I know," Bruce had said. "But if I'm going to be what I was, I need to work with someone who can do better than hold their own. I need to work with someone who can hand me my ass, and frankly, that's only Dinah."

"Hang on. I'm working out a suave remark about my hands on your ass, but I got derailed by the insult. I'm somewhere between angry and turned-on."

"That's you most days," retorted Bruce, tossing his towel onto Clark, who was stretched lazily on the bed. Their bed. Clark thought of that conversation now, watching Bruce and Dinah have at each other with renewed ferocity. 

They were fighting with modified donga sticks—longer than an escrima, but thinner, more flexible. Still strong enough to do serious damage, if a blow landed. The two of them were amazing to watch, pushing each other to the limit like this, spinning, dancing, slicing. The gym rang with the smack of their sticks. Here in the founding members' gym, with retinal access only, no one needed to bother with masks. Bruce was bare-chested, bare-faced, wearing only the loose pants he favored for work-out. Dinah was conservatively half his weight, particularly now since he had gained most of his size back, but somehow he still couldn't land above one blow for every twenty tries. 

"Give up?" she called.

"Hah," he answered, and they began another deadly dance across the floor. Bruce arced out of the way of her blows with equal ease. 

"I feel like we should sell tickets," Oliver remarked. "Hey, I've been meaning to ask Bruce. What do you hear about this Court of Owls thing? We've been hearing things in Star City that make me wonder what the hell is going on in Gotham."

"I think most of it's just rumors," Clark said. "I'm pretty sure there's a no alcohol rule in the gym," he added, as Oliver pulled the beer out of his quiver's secret pouch and popped the top.

"Because you probably wrote it," Oliver said, sipping the foam off the top. "My point is, this is a spectator sport, and I intend to enjoy it."

"I have the uncomfortable feeling there are tapes in your house I don't want to know anything about."

Oliver laughed loudly, which was just enough of a distraction that Bruce clipped his opponent's forearm, making her growl and redouble her attack. "He's pretty damn amazing," Oliver said. "Most folks, they beat that kind of rap, they would kick back on a desert island for the rest of their days."

"He did go to an island, for a few days." 

"Yeah, and the story goes, he hired Lady Shiva to try to kill him, but I guess that just goes to show you shouldn't listen to rumors, huh." Oliver was studying him over his beer. "So speaking of rumors."

"I wasn't, actually."

"Yeah, I know, but I was. You and Bruce. Any truth to that one?"

Clark considered. He had never actually thought about the possibility he would be point-blank asked, but it figured it would be Oliver. "I think the more we stay out of the private lives of League members, the better," he said, hating the primness in his voice, knowing Bruce would laugh at him. 

"Okay, sure, because me launching a sexual-preference inquisition of the entire League, that's the exact same as me asking a buddy who he's dating."

"I'm not _dating_ anyone," he said, nettled. "It's not like that. Life is more complicated than that."

"Uh huh," Oliver said. "Progressive financial re-structuring, that's complicated. Astrophysical thermodynamics, that's complicated. The female orgasm, that's complicated."

"I can see how you'd think so," he said, and got a shove on his arm for it. 

"Ah, go fuck yourself. Wait, I bet you wrote a profanity rule for the gym too." 

"Of course. Fines to be exacted from members' salaries."

Oliver finished off his beer. "All that was me saying I'm happy for you," he said. "I mean it, man. Also, goddamn finally. And speaking of tapes, if the League ever needs to make a cool billion, we could just market the two of you. Can you imagine? The Superman/Batman sex tape. We would make so much goddamn money, you can't begin to fathom it. Seriously, why should dirtbag porn producers in Tucson make all that money off the knock-offs when we've got the genuine article?"

"That— _what_?"

"You don't know about those?" Oliver clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Well, never you mind, my man. The point is, you're happy."

"Wait, what about porn producers in Tucson?"

"Nothing, man, nothing. I never watched any of those. Not more than like, once, at a friend's house."

"Oiver—" the rest of his remonstrance was lost in the sound that filled the gym. A sick flat crack, and maybe it was only in Clark's head that the sound of it expanded and filled the room, shoving out everything else, but Oliver had dropped his beer too. There was no mistaking the wet crunch of bone, and Bruce felled to his knees.

Clark was at his side in a millisecond. Dinah's face was as white as Bruce's. "I didn't—Clark, I barely clipped him, I don't know what—"

Bruce was hunched over his arm, controlling his breathing with difficulty. Clark didn't need x-ray vision to see how shattered the arm was, and in how many places. He pulled Bruce into his body. "Okay baby, it's okay, it's going to be all right, let's get you to Leslie, it's fine, it's okay—" Clark shifted him into his arms, but gently. 

"I'm sorry," Bruce whispered. "So. . . sorry." And then his head tipped forward, and Clark cradled him into blackness.


	12. Lazarus

"I don't understand," Clark said, and Bruce looked only at the floor. 

"Yes, you do," he said. 

"I don't understand," Clark repeated. "Full remission means full remission, right? It means cancer-free. It means this should not be possible."

"Unfortunately," Leslie began, and he ripped the clipboard out of her hand and threw it across the room. It embedded in the wall in a small shower of plaster, about half of it jutting out. She looked unimpressed. "Unfortunately," she said again. "Complete remission in AML patients is so rare that we don't even have any reliable statistics about this. I have no way of knowing how long, on average, a remission would be for an AML patient because it just doesn't happen."

"But _remission_ ," Clark insisted.

"Did you think it was forever," Bruce said, still looking at the floor. 

_Yes!_ he wanted to shout at Bruce, but Bruce's face was tired, his arm was swathed in a brace that held it from his body, and the sutures from his surgery were still red and raw. And yet he looked untroubled—distracted almost, like he was thinking about something else. It just made Clark more furious. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I did. And if you knew you were getting sick—if you suspected this—you should have said something, you should have—"

He broke off and paced to the window. They were back at Gotham General, but in a hospital room this time. The surgery repairing Bruce's arm had been successful, if by successful you meant skewered with a steel rod from shoulder to wrist to keep his bones from crumbling to pieces, and Bruce was recovering quickly, if by recovering you meant he was facing the same death he had just spent a year cheating. He hated the feeling of Leslie and Bruce watching him, of their eyes on him like they knew something he did not.

"Okay," he said, folding his arms and making himself meet Bruce's remote eyes. "So, all right, we're back at square one. We beat this before, we'll beat it again. You already know Bruce can tolerate elevated levels of radiation and chemo, so that's what we do again. Right?"

There was a line between Leslie's delicate brows. "Clark. Bruce finished with his treatment barely eleven months ago. That's too soon to begin another course. It would kill him faster than the leukemia."

"All right, so what do we do? How much longer does he have to wait before he can start a second round?"

"Leslie," Bruce said. "Will you give us a minute."

"No," Clark said, when she had stepped out of the room. " _No_."

"What is it you want me to say?"

"I want you to not say what you're about to say."

"I want to not say it too."

"Then don't say it. We can fight. I want us to still fight." 

"Us? I notice I'm the only one dying here."

"Fine, you then. I want you to fight. We—you—tried fighting one way, now we're going to try fighting another. Fighting—we just have to keep fighting—"

"I did. I fought as hard as I could. I won, for as long as I could. Part of fighting is knowing when you've been defeated."

"No," he insisted. "No, I don't accept that. I refuse to accept it. No." I sound like Damian, he thought, and realized he didn't at all care. "Okay," he said. "There's more we can do. There are some options we haven't explored. I can tell you one thing that is not going to happen, you are not going to die. Not now, not after we've come so far."

Bruce opened his mouth to say something, but Clark shut him up. "No," he said again. "Goddammit, no. You asked me to help you die once before, and I did. We did it your way, we did everything your way. This time, we do it my way. I will _not_ go through that again, I will _not_ wait around silently watching you die, get this through your head, I will _not_ do that again!"

Too late he became aware he was shouting. Bruce was back to staring at the floor. "Will you leave, then," was all he said. 

"Leave," Clark repeated stupidly.

"That's what people do, isn't it, when they can't take it any more?"

For a minute the room was thunderous with Bruce's question. Clark blinked at him, like he had not understood what Bruce was saying. "Leave you," was all he said, and then he was kneeling by the side of the bed, his head on Bruce's knees. "Oh my God, baby, no. That isn't what I meant. You tell me how I leave you, you tell me how." 

His arms were around Bruce, and Bruce's right hand was stroking his head. "I knew it wouldn't last," Bruce said, after a while. "I should have let things stay like they were, between us. But I was selfish."

They stayed like that, for a long time, and after a bit Clark crawled up onto the bed with him, and arranged them carefully so as not to hurt Bruce's arm. He found a position after a while that worked, just curled around Bruce, who was curled into him. They didn't say anything, just listened to each other's breathing.

"I forgot to tell you this funny story," Clark said, eventually, and Bruce said, "Mm?"

"I was at the park on South Fawcett the other day. I was eating lunch there, because the air conditioning in my office is set at about negative fifty, and I don't mind it normally, but I do resent watching icicles form on my panini. So I ate in the park."

He shifted and re-settled Bruce, tucked more firmly against him. "And there were these little girls, playing there. Over on the swing sets, the—I don't know what you call it. Not the monkey bars, some sort of dome-like structure, but with bars. Anyway, they were playing there, and there was this boy who was chasing the two of them, just being a real little jerk like boys can be, and finally the two girls teamed up and hid in the pirate ship to ambush him. And the one girl said to the other little girl, no we can't, he's too big, we can't take him. And the other girl said, no, we can take him, I know we can. And she said, come on, let's Batman this thing." 

"I'm not sure if that was meant to be poignant or inspiring. I suspect you made it up."

"No, it happened all right."

"Which little girl am I supposed to be?"

"What? Neither. It wasn't a metaphor."

"If this is the prelude to a speech about holing up in our pirate ship and fighting to the bitter end, spare me."

"Such an asshole," Clark sighed. "It was just a funny story."

"Hmph," Bruce said, and they lay like that a few minutes more. 

"It won't be like before," Bruce said. "It will be easier this time. It will go much faster."

"I know," Clark said. He reached for the clunky hospital remote hanging over the bed rail. "It's four in the afternoon. That means talk show, cop show, or nature show. You always like that one with the antelopes getting mauled by hungry predators. What's it called?"

"Death at the Waterhole."

"That's the one. Don't give away the ending."

* * *

"I think I have been a patient student of many of the ways of your world," Diana said. _Not all that patient_ , he could have pointed out, but with Diana, diplomacy and tact always got you further than anything else. "But this, I confess, I do not understand."

"There's nothing to understand," Clark said. "You act like dying is a personal choice Bruce has made."

"Isn't it?"

"Just keep your voice down. Please." He was at the window in one of the rooms in the North Tower, with the good view out over the city instead of the crappy one out over the parking garage. He was becoming a connoisseur of the views, and he had expanded opportunity now to catalog them. Once a week now, Bruce came for a blood transfusion, and once a week, he would lie in a hospital bed while the elusive, false promise of life would drip into his veins. At best, it gave his body a boost; at worst; it simply fed the beast that was eating his marrow already. 

Often, like today, Bruce would drift off during the transfusion. He was tired a great deal, but lucid when he was awake, and relatively pain-free. He could walk, and do things, and enjoy the time he had left. He could understand why Bruce would have chosen this option to begin with. Diana glanced at him.

"He's asleep, I'm not disturbing him. And you're not returning my calls, so now you have to face me here."

"You didn't come," he said, sharply. 

"What do you mean?"

"When Bruce was sick. You didn't come. You didn't come to visit him, not once. For God's sake, Diana. After everything the three of us have been through. What the hell were you thinking?"

She was looking at him in horror. "I would never have shamed him like that," she said, and he sighed. 

"Shamed him. How would it have shamed him for you to—"

"A great warrior," she said indignantly. "Perhaps the greatest of all Man's World. And you would have him expose his weakness to those closest to him? I stayed away because I would spare him the pity of my presence."

He ground his teeth. "It wouldn't have to be pity."

"No," she said more gently. "It is not all pity. But it is our custom, on Themyscira."

He knew well enough that arguing against Amazonian customs was like battering his head against a wall. "I see," he said.

"You do not understand."

"No. But I'm not like you." _Or him_ , he considered adding, because he knew that as deranged as he found Diana's reasoning, it would make a certain sense to Bruce. Bruce had probably figured it out long ago, why Diana never came. They were strangely alike, the two of them—both warriors, both ill-suited to life among non-warriors. The hard gem-bright logic of Diana's world was clear as crystal to Bruce. 

"I for my part do not understand certain things," she was saying. "Why he would choose to die in this way, for instance."

"You think he chose this," he said. 

"I have made you angry, Kal, forgive me. I did not mean that he would choose death—but when the Fates have granted us the possibility to choose, it is my people's belief that we are honor-bound to take our destiny into our own hands."

"He's done everything there is to do, which you would know if you had been here."

She put a hand on his arm, which he ignored. "Kal. Can you not even look at me. Please forgive me if I have dishonored him. I did not intend it."

"I know."

"I have never been around anyone this ill before," she said. "On Themyscira, if a warrior has suffered irrecoverable wounds in battle, she hosts a magnificent feast. She invites all her sisters, and we drink and make merry and recount tales of her valor and pour libations to the gods the whole night long. And at the end of the night, we all adorn her naked body with kisses, and then open her veins for her, that the gods may drink their final and sweetest libation. It is a very beautiful ceremony. Do you think Bruce would like to hear about that?"

"You know, I don't."

"Maybe if I stopped at the part about the kisses?"

He gave her a wry smile. "Well," he said, thinking of Bruce's. . . what was it Selina had called it? The breadth of his tastes. "I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind hearing about that part."

She gave a low throaty laugh. "Oh, Kal. Shall I tell you one thing I regret? I regret that the three of us never seized the opportunity to. . . express our love for each other in that way. Together, I mean."

"Ah," he said, and she smiled. 

"I've made you blush."

"No no, just short-circuited my brain a little, that's all." 

They stood and watched Bruce sleep, before it occurred to him how irritating Bruce would find that, and turned away to the window again. "That would be a path of honor for Bruce," she said, and he frowned at her. 

"Ah. . . I'm not sure that. . ."

"I meant taking his destiny into his own hands by the sword. If death comes, it should come as he wishes it, when he wishes it. He should not wait until he is too weak to manage a blade."

Clark shook his head. "Do me a favor. If you do happen to come by when he's awake, I wouldn't bring that up, all right? Bruce has some issues about suicide."

"Really? That surprises me, in such a warrior. Surely he understands the value of the good death. And as for dishonor in this world, why, it is even in one of your holy books, yes? He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. I remember reading that and being pleased."

"Well, you might have misread that a little. It's intended to make a life of violence sound unappealing."

"Hm," she said. "How odd." She studied Bruce some more, the even rise and fall of his chest. He watched as she wandered closer to his bedside, and brushed a tentative hand against Bruce's. He didn't even twitch, he was resting so peacefully. 

"Kal," she said softly. "You know there is another option." 

"Diana—"

"You have said nothing of the Lazarus pit. Or pits—Al Ghul maintains more than one, Bruce has said in the past."

"That is not an option for Bruce. Not only would Ra's exact a price Bruce could never willingly pay, but Bruce would find that road dishonorable, to put it in terms an Amazonian can understand."

"I suspect they know something of honor in Kansas, too."

"Yes," he acknowledged. "Bruce is right on this one, Diana. Even if Ra's let him near a pit—and even if it would do any good, which we don't exactly know—the price would be too high. Most likely, it would be Damian."

"Impossible," she said. 

She released Bruce's hand and turned to embrace him, holding him hard enough to bruise. "Forgive me," she whispered. 

He returned to pacing after she had gone, trying not to wear grooves in the floor. He ought to go downstairs and get a coffee. Bruce would be released in a little while, but if he was sleeping Leslie would probably authorize a few more hours here. He had time to grab a paper, call Tim and find out how things were at the house. Alfred could come take over for him here, and he could head back to the office and try to get a few more hours' work done. 

He knew he would do none of that. He opened his laptop and worked on a few articles, fingers flying over the keyboard, and almost missed it when Bruce said, "There were two."

"Hey," he said, with a smile. "Two what?"

"There were—" Bruce reached for the water cup, and Clark handed it to him, watched him swallow thirstily. "Two Lazaruses," he said. "Assuming I wasn't dreaming that Diana was in here quoting the Bible, which come to think of it I probably was."

"No, you weren't dreaming that part."

"There were two," Bruce said again. His voice was still hoarse from his nap. "Two stories about a man named Lazarus. The only one people ever remember is the one about the man who was raised from the dead. But there's another one. A poor man named Lazarus."

"Okay," Clark said.

"I'm not making this up. Didn't your parents make you go to Sunday school?" 

"I was easily distractible."

"Lazarus died and went to heaven, and the same night a rich man died and went to hell—the man whose gates he used to sit in front of and beg."

"Cheery."

"And the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to dip his finger in cold water, to cool his tongue for him. And Abraham says, Son, you had good things in life, and Lazarus had evil things."

"All right," Clark said. "Very inspiring."

"It's about gratitude," Bruce said. "It's about taking the good things life has to offer you and not complaining when you're handed the bad."

"First off," Clark said, shutting his laptop, "no it's not. I'm pretty sure the point is, the rich man should not have been such an ass to the poor man when they were both alive. Secondly, are we pretending that you've only been handed good things in life because you had money? You've faced more adversity and pain than most people I know, and you've done nothing but use that to help other people. You've devoted your life to other people, so don't preach to me about gratitude when if there were any justice, half of Gotham—hell, _all_ of Gotham—ought to be lined up at your hospital door with offerings of flowers on bended knee, thanking you for a lifetime of service."

"I thought you didn't pay attention in Sunday school."

"I never said I was stupid."

Bruce gave him a slow smile, and Clark gave it back. "I don't know," Bruce said. "You may be right about the injustice of my suffering. Because unless I fantasized that part too, Diana just waited until I was on my deathbed to propose a threesome."

Clark threw back his head and laughed. He yanked the pillow from under Bruce's head and whacked him across the middle with it. Bruce's laugh was low and strong, and the corners of his eyes crinkled with it. And this was a new discovery too: it was not all unremitting bleakness and lack of joy, here on the other side of the looking glass. There was sunlight, warm golden sunlight, even here at the close of the day, as long as the two of them were together.

* * *

Bruce's hair went white at the sides, almost overnight. It only made him more beautiful, more striking, but Bruce didn't see it that way. "I look like an angry badger," he said, glaring at himself in the bathroom mirror while Clark was shaving. 

"I think it looks nice."

Bruce's grimace showed what he thought of that. "It's funny," he said. "I've never thought of myself as vain."

By now, Clark was an expert at aiming his incredulous stares down at his feet rather than up at Bruce, but that one was a challenge, even for him. "You've always been aware of what you look like," Clark observed. He tapped his razor and dried his face. "Bird of prey," he announced. "An eagle. More raptor, less badger."

"You think?"

"Definitely. You could have a spot on that Death at the Waterhole, if you wanted."

"You know that isn't actually its name," Bruce said.

* * *

Before, when the focus had been on the fight, Bruce hadn't troubled with good-byes. He hadn't talked about what would come after, or appeared to make any provision for it. Now, it was part of their daily conversation, a living reality they went to bed with, got up with, drank coffee with, showered with, ate dinner with, watched TV with. 

"The company goes to Tim," Bruce said one night. "That's the only thing that makes sense. He's got an affinity for dealing with money, he knows how to move in that world, and more importantly, he doesn't mind doing it. He should be at the helm of the company, for the foreseeable future."

"That doesn't shut the others out, does it," Clark said, and Bruce shook his head. 

"Those trusts were set up years ago, and they're revolving, profits will continue to bolster them. I guess it doesn't really matter, since Dick would probably slice off a foot before he'd touch his trust, but there's a cool fortune for him and Jason both, sitting in a bank in case they ever want it."

"Damian?" 

"For him too, though he's ten years away from being able to access it. Tim can control his finances until then."

"That's not going to go over well," Clark observed. 

"You'd be surprised. The two of them get along by some rare alchemy I couldn't begin to figure out. Sometimes Tim is the only one he'll listen to."

 _Fire and ice_ , thought Clark. Bruce's most passionate boy and his most cool-tempered; it made sense they would find balance in each other, but it couldn't have been predicted just two short years ago, when Tim was surviving multiple assassination attempts just walking down the hall to brush his teeth. 

"There's another trust for Alfred," Bruce was saying. "Not as substantial of course, because he's already quite well off."

"Really? How well off?"

"Could-buy-and-sell-you sort of well off. Did you think Alfred worked here to make ends meet?"

"Silly me and my old-fashioned assumptions about why people have jobs."

Bruce was silent a few minutes. It was about one in the morning, actually, but his sleep had long since ceased being regular, and he would be awake for long stretches in the middle of the night, or doze half the day away. Clark stayed awake with him when he could, and slept when he could not, because he knew how angry it would make Bruce if he felt he was shirking his job, or neglecting his life at the Planet. 

Sometimes when he was up in the middle of the night like this with Bruce, he would pull his laptop out and get some work done. That was how some of their best talks happened, while Clark's attention was elsewhere.

"Can we talk about you now," Bruce said. 

"About my job?"

"About your finances."

Clark looked up in surprise. "I can actually balance my own checkbook, you know. Wait. Have you been accessing my banking information?"

"I'm trying to tell you I've established a trust for you, too."

"Oh no. Oh no no no. Bruce, listen to me, no. It's not that I don't appreciate the thought, but all I would do with that is take it and give it to the boys. I'm not taking a dime that belongs to them."

"You would have a lot more professional and personal freedom."

"I don't need more of either. Bruce. I'm serious. Please don't put me in that position. I'm not on your payroll, I'm not your kid, and I'm sure as hell not your paid companion. So whatever you did, you can just damn well undo it."

"You must be serious. You just cursed twice in a single speech."

"Hah hah. You're as bad as Ollie." He went back to his editing, but didn't fool himself Bruce had stopped thinking about it. 

"We could formalize our relationship," Bruce said after a while.

"Formalize. What, like wear tuxedos while taking tea in the south garden?"

"Like getting married."

He looked up from the laptop to find Bruce's grave face looking back at him. "No," he said. 

"No?"

"No, because you're just looking for another way to give me your money, which I don't need or want."

They were quiet, and Clark returned to his editing. He thought Bruce might be asleep, curled up as he was on the sofa, but after a bit Bruce sat up and tugged at his pillows, re-arranging them. "What if I weren't," he said. 

"Hm? Weren't what?"

"About what we were talking about before. What if it weren't just about a way to hand you money under the table? Getting married, I mean. My lawyers would write a rock-solid pre-nup that would basically ensure you were thrown to the curb with a bag of Cheez-its after my death, if that's what you prefer."

"Do you want us to get married?"

"The better question is, why don't you?"

He considered this. "Because we're for us, and no one else. I don't know, I just prefer it when our private life is. . . private. Marriage is an essentially public institution."

"And enough of your life is given to the public as it is," Bruce said. 

"Yes," Clark said. "I guess that's it. But if it's important to you, I wouldn't mind."

"Such passion, Mr. Kent. It's a good thing I'm lying down already."

"See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. People invest marriage with all this sentiment and emotional freight it's not designed to bear. It's an organizing principle of civil society, not hearts and flowers and bells and. . ." He waved his hand. "Foolishness."

"You sound like me."

Clark snorted. "I sound like someone who's been divorced." He regretted it as soon as he had said it, because they didn't talk much about Lois—didn't talk at all about her, really. That wasn't by design on Clark's part. Mainly it was embarrassment. He didn't compare his old love to this one because, truthfully, if he were to be painfully honest with himself, there was no comparison between them. He had been in love with Bruce all the time he had been struggling to make a life with Lois. He might not always have known the name for it, or he might have concealed the name from himself. But it had been there, the whole time. 

Once, he had cheated on Lois. With Bruce, of course. It had been after a horrible mission gone hideously wrong, and what had been meant to be a rescue of the alien spacecraft had resulted in gruesome deaths that Clark had been powerless to stop. Bruce had been running support from the Javelin, and had seen the whole thing. Afterward, traveling back to the Watchtower, Bruce had put the Javelin in autopilot and come to check on him, sitting in the back of the craft, just staring at the floor.

Bruce had picked him up by the collar of his suit and pushed him against the wall, kissing him hard. "Don't touch me, I'm filth, I'm useless, don't touch me," Clark had whispered, but Bruce had just kissed him harder. 

They had fucked right there, in the back of the Javelin. He had taken Bruce with the same sort of subtlety and finesse Bruce had used to kiss him, that is to say, none—taken him with Bruce's hand braced on the wall, his head bowed, Clark pushing into him with hungry grunts and a wet orgasm that had slicked Bruce so good. He kept going even after he knew Bruce had come, because he had wanted to keep riding him, and because he had wanted to keep coming. He had had one hand curled around Bruce's jaw to hold him steady. 

"Enough," Bruce had panted, and Clark had shaken his head.

"One more, one more—God— _fuuuuck_ ," and he had groaned his final release before Bruce had shoved him roughly off. They had re-assembled their clothes and stared at each other, panting. It had never been spoken of again.

That was the second time they had fucked around, the first being before his marriage. And the hell of it was, he didn't stop to think, _wait, I'm married_. The only thought he had had was, _this will make things even stranger with Bruce, but I don't care_. It was like he hadn't even remembered there was another problem with what they were doing until afterward, and that was when he had known he was screwed. 

"Are you thinking about Lois?" Bruce was looking at him oddly.

"Thinking of the times I didn't think about Lois."

"It was only the once, stop beating yourself up."

"It wasn't just once, that I thought about you when I was with her." 

"Good," Bruce said. 

"Yeah, sure, good. You weren't the one breaking every vow you had made."

"You didn't cheat on Lois. You cheated on me."

Clark narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Is this about George Clooney again?"

"You didn't cheat on Lois with me, you cheated on me with Lois, and not just once, but for years. You cheated on me because you knew the truth when I did, which is to say, about five minutes after we met. You just chose to ignore the truth. You cheated on me, because we were first, and everything else, everyone else, including Lois, came after."

Clark weighed this for a minute. Then he set his laptop down and curled up on the floor next to the low-slung sofa, putting his head on Bruce's chest and looping an arm around Bruce. "And to think," he mused, "I used to worry that I would be the possessive one. I should have known you would win that competition, too."

"Yes, you should have." But Bruce's hand stroked his head, rhythmically, and Clark drifted off like that. When he opened his eyes it was full daylight, he was late to work, and Alfred had set the tea tray down in silence while they slept. Somehow that embarrassed him more than the times Alfred had set the tea tray down while they were still asleep in bed, inadequately wrapped in sheets. This was more naked, somehow.


	13. Living by the Sword

In his dreams, there is a shining sword.

Sometimes it is wielded by an Amazon who at first he thinks is Diana, but then the wind blows her hair aside and it is not her. Sometimes there are many Amazons, and they bend to open his veins with their kisses.

Sometimes the sword is wielded by a small dark-haired ninja who strikes from the darkness like a dagger. He reaches for the sword to stop it with his hand and draws back a sliced and bloodied limb. _He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword, alien_ , the ninja says. 

He has never told anyone that in his dreams, he is not invulnerable.

When the League—and they—were young, he had learned detective work from Bruce. _I can't teach your brain to think if it hasn't been trained_ , Bruce had said impatiently, when he had asked to learn. _Your mind thinks this way or it doesn't. I can't teach it to you anymore than you can teach me to fly._

_Fine_ , he had said. _I'll just watch then_. 

And over the course of those first years, he had. He had seen that Bruce's brain assembled information the way other brains assembled and catalogued sensation. Bruce would place all the information in front of him, and sit quietly before it, waiting for his brain to suggest the pattern. _I know the answer_ , he would sometimes say. _But I don't yet know that I know it_.

That was how Clark felt, these days. There was an answer, staring him in the face. He just needed to be still, and it would arrive.

The morning after they took Bruce to the hospital, he knew the meaning of the sword. He came home, fell in bed, and did not know the meaning of the sword in his dreams. He woke with sun in his face and he knew the meaning.

* * *

"It needs to not be at the house," Bruce said. They no longer lived lives where he could pretend he didn't know what "it" meant. 

"Are you sure about that?" Clark said with a frown. 

"I'm sure. That just makes things harder for everybody. Let it happen at the hospital or somewhere away from here. I don't want people worrying about things like what to do with the sheets I die on, or something like that."

And Clark had made some joke about 400-count Egyptian cotton sheets, just anything so they could not be talking about what they were talking about. Not that Bruce spent all that much time on the bed; most of the time now, he was on the sofa in his bedroom, asleep. He wondered if it was going to be like that, if the fatigue would finally just claim him, in sleep one of these days, and he would not wake. The narcotics controlled the bone pain, but only contributed to his sleepiness, and sometimes he would skip a dose so he could stay awake a bit longer, talk to Clark a bit more.

The things they talked about weren't always connected, in any rational way. Sometimes Bruce would wake up from a five-hour nap and start talking to him about some mission they had gone on ten years ago. He would ask questions about things he had forgotten, and sometimes his memories wouldn't make any sense, or he would confuse several things together. 

"I need you to do something," he said one afternoon. 

"Sure, anything."

"I need you to look after the boys."

"That's what I've been trying to do."

"I don't mean now. I mean after. Alfred will be here for them, but Alfred is getting older, Alfred won't always be around. I need to know that you'll be around."

"Of course I will."

Bruce twisted his head to look at him, because he was sitting in the chair next to the sofa, behind Bruce. "I want to be very clear about what I'm asking."

"I understand what you're asking."

"Do you. Because I'm asking you not to grieve. I'm saying, you don't get to grieve. You want to be sad, be sad now. Go lock yourself in the bathroom right now and cry if you want, I won't mind. But the minute I'm dead you better goddamn be finished with that shit, because my boys are going to need you to help them, and you can't do it if you're off being a grief diva."

"A grief diva? Are you serious? Bruce, you don't get to tell me when to be sad."

"Sure I do. Do it now, get it out of the way."

"That is not how grief works, as you ought to know." 

"Clark, my death is the equivalent of a giant slow-moving tanker bearing down at four knots an hour. Any idiot can see this coming. You don't get to be surprised when it happens. You don't get to be anything, in fact, because all you are going to be is present for Dick and Tim and Damian. And Jason," he added. 

"I'm sure Jason can do without my help."

"Then you don't know Jason."

That was true enough, so Clark was silent. Miraculously, Bruce left the conversation there—either because he felt he had made his point, or because he had forgotten what he was saying. But as though he had been summoned by the mention of his name, not twenty-four hours later Jason showed up at the Manor. 

Clark was working in his chair, and Bruce was quiet on the sofa, when he had looked up to see the tall young man standing in the doorway. How he had gotten past Alfred Clark had no idea, but there he stood, larger than life and twice as grim. He was glaring at Bruce, and he raised a finger to point at him. 

"Liar," he said, and Bruce sat up. 

"Jason, I—"

" _Liar!_ " 

Clark looked from Jason to Bruce, and from Bruce to Jason, but whatever silent thing they were saying he couldn't decipher. "I'll. . . just be downstairs," he said, when he realized neither of them remembered he was there. He brushed past Jason, who didn't spare him a glance. 

He waited in the kitchen, having his tea with Alfred. Funny how tea had become a crucial part of his life now. He was already thinking how much he was going to miss it, when he was no longer living at the Manor. 

"I need to go check on things up at the Fortress tomorrow," Clark said, stirring his cup absently. "Anything you need me for, or can I get away for a few hours?"

"Not a thing, sir. Although I might trouble you for another cutting of that extraordinary bromeliad you brought last time. I'm afraid I might have over-watered."

"Sure, no problem. Listen, I was thinking." He plucked an apple off the counter and rubbed at it, meditatively. "Do you think Tim might like to go with me?"

"I've no idea, sir. I'm sure he would appreciate the invitation, though."

"Are you. I'm not so sure."

Alfred gave him a canny look. "I suspect you're asking me about more than Master Timothy's social schedule."

"I am."

Alfred sighed. "I'm afraid you'll have to work that one out for yourself, sir. Master Timothy is. . . very much his own man. But I can tell you that he respects you a great deal. As do we all, sir, if I may be permitted to add."

He crossed his arms. "Bruce told me you should never be permitted to add anything."

"Quite right, sir." 

Finding a way to connect with Tim in those weeks was maybe his hardest job, because he was so unsure where he had gone wrong — or even if he had gone wrong, the truth was. Talking to Damian was easy, because as long as wasn't actively trying to assassinate you, you were probably okay. And Dick — Dick was an open book, and if he had a problem with you, you knew about it. Dick's temper was quick as his capacity for forgiveness, and the contrast between Dick and Bruce had been interesting to watch, when Dick was growing up. Bruce's temper was the long slow fuse variety, whereas Dick's was explosive, hair-trigger, violent almost. Often Dick would assume an argument with Bruce was over because his own anger had erupted and burnt itself out already, but Clark would know that Bruce had barely gotten started, and was still working up to the inevitable white-hot supernova destruction of his rage. 

It was a rage very like Jason's, the truth was.

After an hour or so, Clark assumed that Jason had let himself out the same way he had come in. He went upstairs to see if Bruce had fallen back asleep or if he needed anything, and froze in the doorway at what he saw.

Bruce was still lying on the sofa, but Jason was kneeling on the floor, draped across Bruce, face buried in Bruce's chest, his arms around him like he would never let go. Bruce was quietly stroking his back, and for the first time, Clark saw on his face what hadn't been there: grief. Bruce was grieving, not for his own death, but for his son's sadness. Grieving that he would bring him sadness. 

Clark quietly backed away. This sorrow was not for him to see.

* * *

In his dreams that night, Jason wielded the sword. _You know what you have to do, cocksucker_ , he said, before he plunged the sword into Clark's gut. 

_I don't_ , he said, trying to stanch his wound with frantic fingers. _I don't, you need to tell me, somebody needs to tell me_. 

_You know_.

And then Jason was gone, leaving only the sword sticking out of him, and the spurting red. For the first time he could see the sword's blade clearly. There was a greenish tint to its outer edge that looked beautiful against the blood.

* * *

Often in the afternoons, Tim would sit with them. Bruce liked to be read to, and Tim had an excellent reading voice: precise and sonorous and soothing. It didn't matter what he read, Bruce liked it all—Proust or Tolstoy or Undset or the back page of the sports section, he wasn't particular. 

Tim would curl himself in the wing chair closest to the fire, and read the afternoon away, with Bruce watching him. Most of the time, Clark was convinced Bruce didn't hear the words at all; he just watched Tim, watched the firelight on his finely chiseled features, watched the quirk of his expressive lips. Most of the time he would drift back to sleep while Tim read, but one afternoon Clark could see him struggle to stay awake, and when Tim had finished the chapter, Bruce made a vague gesture with his hand.

"I wonder. . . can you give me a minute," he whispered. "I need to talk to my son."

Tim closed the book quickly. "Sure," he said. "I'll go get him." He rose and headed to the door, and Clark closed his eyes, because it was too painful to see. 

"Tim," Bruce said, stopping him. "I meant you."

It was a quiet room, and Clark looked at his shoes. "I used to hate Jack Drake," Bruce said, the same soft voice. "I never told you that. I don't think I've ever hated anyone more. All the evil I've fought, but I hated that man because I was jealous. Because I was jealous of the way you looked at him."

A sound came out of Tim—was ripped from his throat, a small inhuman sound. He gripped the mantel and covered his face. Clark rose as unobtrusively as he could manage and slipped from the room, shutting the door behind him. He didn't know what Bruce said to Tim, any more than he knew what he had said to Jason. It was funny, because all this time he had thought the secret, mysterious, unfathomable part of Bruce's life was his life as a playboy jet-setter, when all along it had been this dense, complicated life taking place right under his nose—Bruce's life as a father. It made him realize the shallowness of his own life, in many ways.

That night he called Kon, and just listened to the sound of his voice as he talked about things on the farm and what was going on with the Titans and Krypto's latest misdeeds.

* * *

They took Bruce to the hospital when the cannula no longer kept him oxygenated enough, and when the oxygen monitor kept going off every time he fell asleep. "I think it's probably time," Clark said softly, with a hand on his shoulder, and Bruce's eyes drifted shut in a slow blink of assent. 

The ambulance took him, and they got him settled in the ICU until they got his oxygen up, and by morning it was him and Alfred and Dick and Tim, with Damian curled in the plastic chair sleeping. Dick was texting someone back and forth—Barbara or Jason or someone—and Alfred put a hand on his back and told him to go home and get some sleep for a while, and so he did. Bruce hadn't roused to consciousness since they got him to the hospital, and the likelihood was, he wouldn't again. 

So Clark drove back to the Manor and fell onto his bed—their bed—and slept a dreamless sleep until the morning light. There was no Alfred to pull back the curtain, but that was all right, his brain was flooded with light. 

He knew the meaning of the sword. 

He came home, fell in bed, and did not know the meaning of the sword in his dreams. He woke with sun in his face and he knew the meaning.

* * *

The kryptonite in the cave was kept in a vault with a simple six-digit code. Clark knelt, examining the keypad with various layers of the visual spectrum, searching for deposit of oils on certain keys. There was no residue anywhere, nothing that might give him a clue.

Dick would know the code, he was certain of it. But Dick would want to know the reason he needed into the vault, and then Dick would try to stop him. 

_Every sane individual on the face of the earth would try to stop you_ , the voice inside him said. But he was long past sanity. 

He started with birthdays, even though he knew it wouldn't be that simple. Bruce's, then his mother's, then his father's, then each of the boys. Alfred's, though that took a bit of snooping. His own, on a whim. 

And then, he was out of ideas. 

He could rip the front of the vault off, but the vault was built deeply into the stone, and it didn't take much examination to see that if he brought down the vault, most of the cave would come crashing down too, and quite possibly most of the southern foundation of the Manor. He wasn't opposed to trying a frontal assault, but he had a feeling Bruce had probably guarded against that possibility too. After all, the vault existed to guard against a Superman-gone-rogue, and presumably that Superman would also try to rip open the vault and destroy Bruce's stash of kryptonite. 

That Superman. He _was_ that Superman now. This was what anyone would have to consider going rogue.

"Think like Bruce," he muttered. "Come on, think like him."

He sat in Bruce's chair, feet up on the console, staring at the vault. His phone buzzed several times, but he ignored it. It would be Alfred, or one of the boys, wondering where he was. While he sat here Bruce's life was ebbing away, and instead of being at his side, he was sitting here, on a fool's errand, staring at blank stone. Bruce had sat here every day, and looked at that vault. What had been his thoughts?

"I'll need you to wait," Clark had said, just last week. They had been lying in bed, Bruce's head on his chest. Sometimes even with the oxygen his respiration was so shallow that Clark would watch for the next breath, and the next, would listen for any sound of slowing in that magnificent unbeatable heart. 

"Wait for what?" Bruce's voice had been a drowsy murmur.

"For me. I don't know what Kryptonian lifespans are like, not really, not under this sun. It could be a long time."

"Well, that's all right, because I'll be dead."

"I meant. . . just in case. There could be. . . something else afterward. In case there is. Just wait for me, all right?"

Bruce's hand sought his, knit their fingers together. "All right."

"I'm just saying, there better not be a dead girlfriend waiting for you on the other side, or anything like that. Because I'm not going to step graciously aside."

"You forget, I'm the possessive one."

_The possessive one. Everything I want. You cheated on me with Lois. You knew the truth five minutes after we met._

All those years he had believed in Bruce's indifference, and Bruce had been eating his heart for him. Slowly Clark got up from the chair. He walked to the keypad. _Think like Bruce_ , he had berated himself. What was the one number Bruce had thought would keep this vault safe from him? What was the one number Bruce had believed he would never remember?

_Five minutes after we met._

Deliberately, he punched in the six-digits: the day, month, and year of the first time Bruce and he had met.

The door slid back with a grinding crunch of stone on stone. 

Beyond the door was a box, and in that box was a sickly green glow. Clark reached for a communicator lying on a nearby console. 

"Diana," he said. "I need you."

"I can be there in ten minutes. Everything all right?"

"I was thinking you might be right, about that Amazonian ritual. Care to lend a hand?"

"I'm on my way."

He clicked off the communicator. What he was about to do was dangerous, manipulative, potentially cruel, and definitely obsessive. That was where thinking like Bruce was likely to get you.

* * *

It took the better part of the day, to forge it. They worked swiftly and silently, and they had to reject Clark's initial idea of a solid kryptonite blade because the heat necessary to melt the kryptonite to workable levels was out of their reach in the cave, with what equipment Bruce had available. It was a setback, but the armory was full of blades they could adapt, and after a while, they found the right one.

"This one," Diana said, reaching for a long shimmering blade, not unlike the one in his dreams.

"No," he said. He stood there at the open armory doors and studied every blade until he knew the right one. He knew he was moving sluggishly, knew that even with all their precautions, he had had enough kryptonite exposure to be compromised. He would have to hope it wasn't too much, because he would need all his strength for what came after, and they couldn't afford delay. They might already be too late. He pushed all those thoughts out of his head; pushed down the image of Bruce, lying still and motionless in that hospital bed. 

"Here," he said, reaching for a shortened dagger. He didn't know why it spoke to him, but it did, and the flanges on the blade would work well for their purposes. 

"Then let us begin," Diana said, gripping its haft.

* * *

"Have you called him?" Barbara was watching Dick's face as he stared out the window, and the jump of the muscle in his jaw.

"Repeatedly."

"Where could he be?"

"Who the hell knows? On one of the moons of Jupiter, for all I know. Maybe it got too much for him to deal with."

"That doesn't sound like Clark. Not after he's been here through everything."

Dick shook his head. "Grief makes people do strange things."

"He's not dead yet. I wish you would all stop talking as though he were dead when he's not."

"Okay, sure, I'll try to do better. Does comatose and non-responsive work for you? How about eaten alive with cancer and pissing blood through his non-functioning kidneys? Or maybe borderline vegetative? You just let me know what turn of phrase you find easiest to deal with, before we arrive at dead."

He stalked away from her, to another window of this bleak waiting room, hating his own petulance even as he heard it. What was worse, she would probably forgive him. Alfred wouldn't, though. Alfred would never forgive rudeness of any kind. 

And then Clark was pushing open the waiting room doors, his eyes looking for him. Diana was with him, and there was a strange look to both of them—the sort of heightened, pre-battle look he recognized, because he'd felt it enough himself. It was oddly out of place in this room. "Come with me," Clark said, looking at no one else: not Alfred or Tim or Damian or Barbara, or anyone but him. 

"I need you to help secure the doors," Clark said, as they were striding down the hall to the ICU. 

"Clark, what the hell are you doing? Leslie—" Dick stopped her as she walked toward them, clearly on her way to the waiting room with a new update.

"I need five minutes with Bruce," Clark said, and Dick was relieved to see Leslie looked as alarmed as he did.

"Five minutes for what?"

"We're going to try an experiment," he said.

"Like fun you are. What on earth are you talking about?"

"I need you to have a team standing by, in case something goes wrong."

Dick grabbed his arm. "Clark, whatever the hell you're planning, stop it. Bruce is going to die in peace if I have anything to say about it, without any more of your attempts to stop it."

"But you don't," Clark said. "Have anything to say about it, that is. And he's not going to die, I'm going to save his life. You can help me or not, but get your hand off me."

"What sort of experiment are you talking about?" Leslie was frowning at him, and eyeing Diana suspiciously.

"Remember before, when I was working on the idea of a blood transfusion?"

"Oh no," she said in horror. "Clark, no, we already proved that can't work. Do you want him to die in agony? I know you don't want that for him, I know you can't possibly want that."

"Will you just listen," he said. "I know now what I was doing wrong. I know this will work. You have to let me try."

"Clark, that is sheer desperation-fueled fantasy. You can't possibly—surely you don't want him to die in that kind of pain."

"I don't," he said. "But that's a risk I'll just have to take."

"A risk _you'll_ have to take," Dick shouted, looking from one the other in confusion. "Leslie, what the hell is he—"

But it was too late, because Clark was brushing past them and headed straight to the ICU doors with Diana at his heels like an Amazonian battle guard. He pushed through the double doors effortlessly, ignoring the flashing lights and buzzing alarm. Leslie had pulled out her cell and was punching in a code—probably alerting hospital security, calling out the tanks, who knew.

"Shit," Dick breathed. "I should have known this would happen." He raced after them, just in time to see Diana slam the glass door of Bruce's room shut. She held it as he pounded on it, yelling. 

Clark had something in his hand—a weapon, a knife. The edges of the blade glowed green, and Dick saw him stagger. Kryptonite. What the hell, what the ever living fucking hell—

" _Stop!_ " he shouted through the glass. "Goddammit, _stop!_ "

Clark was keeping his grip firm, though. He was on top of Bruce now, one knee on either side of him, the blade uplifted like a scene out of some Aztec sacrifice. "No!" Dick shouted, and he picked up a chair, hurling it at the shatter-proof glass. There were nurses and secuity staff running around now, and some of them were trying to pull him away from the door, but he was too strong for them. 

Like it was happening in slow motion, he saw the long vicious slice of Clark's blade, right up the length of Bruce's arm. Blood spurted onto the floor, and he could see the arterial arc—Clark had cut deep and true. He heard a hoarse siren from somewhere and realized it was his own scream, and there was someone trying to pull him away, someone slim and red-haired and far stronger than the beefy security guard. The guard was aiming a weapon at the doorlock now, but someone else was yelling about the woman standing on the other side of the glass, how he would hit that woman, he had to stop—

And then Clark's own arm was raised, and the dagger sliced his arm open. Dick gasped to see the slick flow of blood covering both of them. That was why it was kryptonite, that was why. . .

Diana had released the door and was grabbing Clark's arm, sealing it to Bruce's, pressing them together while their mingled blood spattered and pulsed and sprayed her red, and every monitor in Bruce's room was shrieking its ear-splitting protest, every security guard in the hospital was rushing through the doors, every person on the floor was pushing past him, and he stood there rooted, frozen, unable to believe what he was seeing. 

Clark collapsed forward onto Bruce at the same time as the guard shot the lock off the door, and Leslie Thompkins, all five feet of her, was barreling past security guards and orderlies and nurses with the sheer force of her personality, all but kicking people out of her way, and he knew how bad it was when he saw Leslie cover her face with her hands. And it was odd, but in all the cacophony of that day, all the hell of noise and shouts and screams, what he heard most clearly was Leslie's small muted noise when she saw their bodies, and the slick of their mingled blood spreading on the floor.

* * *

His chest felt so full of happiness, it was literally stretched with it. Bruce's grousing disturbed his happiness not the slightest bit, and was if anything a pleasant (and familiar) background counterpoint to Clark's buoyant mood. Nothing could destroy the joy of this day for him, not even Bruce Wayne in a foul temper.

"It's like I'm dead," Bruce started in, at breakfast. No one paid him any mind; he had been saying the same thing for two months now, ever since Mayor Gordon had first approached him about it. "This is exactly the sort of thing you do for dead people."

"Not dead, retired," Clark pointed out, for the umpty-ump billionth time. He sipped his coffee absently and scrolled through headlines.

"Hmph. I'd like to know the difference."

"In one of them, you still have to attend events in your honor. In the other, you're excused."

"What difference does it even make if I'm there or not? Gordon is the only one who would even notice."

"Then you'll show up for him." Clark scrolled to the next page, frowning at a turn of phrase he hadn't recalled seeing in hard copy. 

"You know what's irritating?"

"You, before your fourth cup of coffee?"

"Watching you post-edit your own paper, that's what's irritating. For God's sake, you go over every article with a fine-toothed comb before it even sees final draft, and then you still sit here the next morning staring at it like a high school English teacher with a batch of unmarked essays. It's goddamn irritating. And I'll tell you what else," he continued.

"I'm sure you will," Clark observed.

"It reveals a lack of trust in your editors, is what. Being editor-in-chief means you learn to trust the decisions of the people you've hired. Learning to delegate, that's what being a leader is all about."

"Are you serious right now?"

Bruce scowled and downed more coffee. "Do as I say, not as I do," he grumbled.

"Didn't work on your boys, not going to work on me. Come on, let's get dressed. You can't attend your own statue-unveiling in your bathrobe."

"Hmph," he said again.

"Grumpy old asshole." Clark rose and kissed the top of that white mane on his way to the coffee pot.

"It isn't even a statue of me," he sighed, but Clark could hear his victory in the note of resignation. "It's a statue of Batman. I'm supposed to get dressed up to go stare at some fantasy-land version of me."

"I don't know about that. I've seen the sketches, and I have to say, that is actually what your biceps looked like. Not to mention your quads. I'd throw in your glutes, too, but I think they've got the cloak artfully draped."

"And I don't suppose it occurs to you that a seventy-year-old man might not be thrilled at having to stare at what he used to look like?"

"Hah. You're the lion in winter." Clark rinsed his cup and stared out at the back garden terrace. The remodeling in the south wing had unsettled some of the garden foundations, and he was anxious about that parterre wall. That merited another conversation with Vincent, who was notably untrusting of things like x-ray vision that could spy weak underground foundations. Engaging a full-time groundskeeper had been another of his victories; in Alfred's final years, Bruce had steadfastly refused to do anything about the house, content to let it crumble about their ears rather than insult Alfred by hiring replacements. 

The afternoon of Alfred's death, the old man had been lucid enough to ask to see the iris garden, one last time. It had been May of ten years ago—the kind of glorious May that comes once every fifty years, with mild weather, warm breezes, frothing showers of blossoms, and air sweeping in from the bay that literally sparkled with mist. Bruce had carried Alfred out there, still strong as an ox at sixty, though in truth it had taken hardly any strength to shift the frail little man by that point, wasted and wracked by the cancer that had so enraged Bruce. _Take all this frippery off me_ , Alfred had said, gesturing feebly at the oxygen tubes and tanks. _I want to breathe the air_. He had died out there, in Bruce's arms, among the irises and the bay breezes. Clark had known it was happening, even before he had caught sight of Bruce's slow walk back to the house, and knew he held a dead man in his arms. Never had he thought of Bruce as old, until he had seen his eyes that afternoon.

His own hair was mostly white now, too, and if his Kryptonian physiology meant he still had his strength, he no longer looked like a young man, either. He didn't rely on the cane Bruce needed, but in truth the cane only added to the gravitas of Bruce's presence. And this afternoon Clark would stand in that marbled rotunda and listen to Bruce finally get the accolades he deserved, after all these years. 

"Stop looking so pleased with yourself," Bruce said, hoisting himself up from the breakfast table. 

"Dick and the girls will be here by noon. Do you want to eat something here at the house before we go? You should probably let Arlene know, if you do. Or we could go out to eat."

"Oh for pity's sake. Mollie's got finals next week, she can't be taking off right now, and Marty's job is too important for her to drop everything and just—"

"Speak of the devil. Hey," Clark said into his phone, with the smile he couldn't help. "Your grandfather was just telling me how much he's looking forward to this afternoon."

"Hah. Bitching a mile a minute, says my money."

"Well, your money's smart."

"Listen, before Mom and Dad get there, we should strategize a little. As you know, I did take the job, but I didn't exactly, well, let's just say I have not been as forthcoming about future eventualities as possibly—"

"Martha Wayne Grayson. You are kidding me."

"Stop, just stop with the judgment, all right? I feel guilty enough. I'm just saying, if it doesn't happen to come up this afternoon, my feelings wouldn't be at all hurt. You know Mom had her heart set on my staying at Christie's. In her head, making a shitload of money is fine as long as art is in the equation somewhere, never mind that ninety-nine percent of what I did at that gilded shithole involved spreadsheets and the last time I saw a Qianlong vase was at your house. So just give me some time to ease them into the idea, is all I'm saying. No, over _there_ , what was I, speaking Linear B?"

"Um, hello?" 

"Sorry." There was a noise of crackling, and a bang of something heavy. "There's a little remodeling going on at my new office."

"I bet." He glanced over at Bruce, who was paying careful attention while pretending not to listen.

"I'm just saying, you and I, we've always had this special bond going on, a kind of understanding, if you will, and if we could just hang onto that—Christ, will you watch where you are _going_ with that, it's _priceless_ —then I think this afternoon would go much more—look, just set it _down_ , all right?"

"Basically, you're hoping I will say nothing while you lie through your teeth to your parents, and that I will persuade your grandfather to do the same. And you're asking me because you think I'm the soft touch."

"Yes, you have it exactly."

He sighed loudly. "Tomorrow. You have this conversation with them tomorrow. All right?"

"Yes! Yes, that was exactly the thing I was going to do. That was just what I was going to say."

He rolled his eyes. "You run a Fortune 100 company, and you are terrified of your parents. Nothing about that seems odd to you?"

"My father beats up criminals with sticks, okay? _Sticks_. I have a healthy respect for this man's displeasure."

Clark laughed. "Well, he has a healthy respect for mine, trust me. Look, just because sitting behind a desk wasn't what your father wanted, doesn't mean he thinks it's a wrong choice for you. Give the man some credit. And in case things go south, I've got your six, Martypants."

"Great. That nickname gets out before my first board meeting, and that's the end of all my authority around here. See you at one, then?"

"Twelve-thirty. Don't you dare be late."

"Twelve-thirty, right, I was just about to say twelve-thirty. Clark. You're the best, seriously." She clicked off, and he turned to meet Bruce's glare and crossed arms. 

"Before you say anything," Clark began.

"Oh, I wasn't saying a word. Why would I say anything about how Marty has played you like a harpsichord since roughly four minutes after her birth?"

He slipped his phone in his pocket, and his arms around Bruce. He had always thought of the blue in Bruce's eyes as sharp, somehow; keen-edged, like a jagged spike of glacier. Like the blues locked in the Fortress walls. He hadn't been to the Fortress in months. He would forget to go for stretches of time, now. Well, he would be spending plenty of time there, soon enough. In ten years, or fifteen. _We'll know when it's time_ , Bruce had said, when they had last talked about it. _When we're ready_. They would lie on that vast bed, in the cool quiet of the Fortress, and slip into sleep together. It wasn't that he feared a painful death, or that Bruce did. How long had it been since Bruce had feared anything? It was the separation they would not face; that was what they would not accept.

Clark bent his face to Bruce's neck, knit his hands around his waist. "You deserve today," he murmured. "I can't wait to see it. To hear those speeches. Everybody saying the things you deserve to hear, finally."

"Mm. Stop trying to change the subject."

"Ah, the subject. Which would be what, now? Right, how I handed the reins of my multibillion dollar multinational corporation to my granddaughter, the youngest CEO in Fortune 500 history. Oh wait. . . that wasn't me, was it?"

"I didn't hand her anything. She was born to sit in that chair. Born to lead Wayne Corp."

"I know." Clark brushed his lips against Bruce's hairline. "She'll be amazing. Amazing like you."

Bruce reared back and gave him a sidelong look. "Someone hoping to get lucky before lunch?"

He laughed, low and soft. "I'm just looking forward to today, is all. I'm just happy. Although, if getting lucky is on the table. . ."

Bruce's laugh matched his. "I'm seventy, there is no table involved. I might fracture a hip. And I don't know why the hell you're looking forward to today. Just a bunch of ridiculous speeches."

"Well," Clark temporized. "Not _all_ of them will be ridiculous."

Bruce narrowed those glacial eyes. "What do you mean."

"I mean, I might have a little surprise for you. Mayor Gordon might have asked the editor-in-chief of the _Daily Planet_ to, ah, say a few words."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph."

"Want to hear some of it?"

Bruce put his hand to his forehead like he was sensing an incipient aneurysm. "You're serious. Jim Gordon, I am going to kill you dead." 

"Hey, no one but Jim will know the real reason I'm speaking. It's perfectly reasonable that the _Planet_ 's editor might be invited to speak, as someone who has had repeated contact with Batman over the years. Just like it's perfectly reasonable that the Wayne family would turn out in force, to honor Gotham's most famous son."

"You're not worried someone's going to recognize my glutes?"

He cast a critical eye at Bruce's lean form. Still straight-backed, still more muscular than any seventy-year-old had a right to be. A profile like a Roman emperor: white-maned, keen-jawed. As beautiful at seventy as he had been at seven, or at thirty. Clark wrapped his fingers firmly around the muscles in question. "Better keep them under wraps, then."

"I defer to your judgment."

Clark brushed his lips against Bruce's. Bruce's mouth opened lazily underneath his. "Tell me what you're going to say," he whispered.

"You don't—want it to be—a surprise?" Clark tilted Bruce's mouth for a better angle, and pushed in more hungrily.

"Not that fond of surprises, if you'll recall. I need to put on a different suit."

"Why? Your clothes are fine." 

"Not next to that, they're not. Your suit is nicer than mine."

Suit. . . there was something about his suit. His clothes were wrong for the ceremony, all wrong. He reached a hand up and felt not crisp cotton but something stiff and scratchy, a gown of some sort. . . 

"He's seizing," said a brisk voice. He knew that voice. Where was he? Marty had better not be late. Damian had promised he would be here before lunch. . .

Bruce was fading; he didn't understand why Bruce's face was becoming harder to see. He reached for him, but he receded, somehow. And now the breakfast room was becoming more shadowy; he reached for a chair, and his hand passed through it. 

"Turn him, turn him!" 

There was some strange convulsion happening in his body. He would probably have to change before the ceremony. Bruce was gone, there was only gray. Marty. . . Mayor Gordon would be so disappointed, his speech. . . the family was coming. . .

The ground under his knees was burning hot. It burned him through his costume, seared his impervious skin. The rocks around him flamed. It was a red, ruined world.

"You," he managed, his mouth full of blood and hate. He stumbled up, falling to his knees again beside the only thing that mattered: the still dark form crumpled in the hot dust. 

"No," he whispered. He reached out, and felt the heat rolling off the black material. He turned him over. Bruce's face was as still as the rest of him, just as battered and bloodied. There were other bodies around him, he could see them now. Diana's limp form, the skin scorched off her. Her hair was untouched, still beautiful. Wally, a twisted wreck. So many, so much smell of death. There was only one he could see, only one his arms wanted to hold. He staggered up with Bruce in his arms. He wrapped that shattered body in his cloak. Bruce's left arm hung at a sickening angle, and the black armor was slick with blood.

"You understand now," said the voice. 

"You," he said again. His arms tightened on Bruce. "You have made. . . a mistake."

"Have I?" The voice sounded only curious. It was coming from Darkseid's ugly face. 

Bruce's body weighed nothing in his arms. "I have nothing to lose now," he said, carefully. "And there is only one pleasure left to me. I will rend the flesh from your face and feed it to you. I will watch you choke on your own skin. It will be my last joy, and it will be worth everything. Are you ready to be destroyed?"

Darkeid's laughter shredded his ears. 

He fell to the ground once more, but the ground was soft—wide and white. It cradled his knees, supporting them. "Don't fucking stop," growled Bruce. 

"Not going to—stop—Christ," he panted. "You feel so good, how do you feel this good."

"God, _yes_." 

Bruce's fists tore at the sheets. Clark could see every expression on his face, every spasm of pleasure, positioned like this. It was their first time trying face-to-face, and what he had thought might be awkward was so hot he wasn't sure he could keep it together for much longer. It was just that Bruce was so flexible, so beautifully limber and responsive. Bruce curled his legs higher around Clark's waist and arched his head back, grunting at the faster pace. The sound coming out of his throat was somewhere south of a growl, and it went right to Clark's cock. No one gave himself to pleasure like Bruce did.

"Fuck, you're big. God, that—right there, yes—" He bit his lip and winced, but Clark just pushed in harder.

His fingers fumbled for Bruce's stiff cock that was knocking against him with every thrust. It glistened at the top; he could feel the pre-cum slicking its tip. It was a glorious cock, a thick handful, beautiful and richly veined. He massaged it on a slow upward stroke. Bruce knocked his hand roughly away.

"Do it—myself, you incompetent—I know how to—goddamn jerk myself—fuck _fuck_ —oh fuck—" Another twisting arch and Bruce was coming, his fist and fingers sloppy with it. Clark groaned, his control gone, because he had just made Bruce come before he wanted to, he was watching Bruce writhe and shudder in a pleasure that had caught him short. Clark's fingers bruised his ass, they dug in so hard. He bit back his own quavering cry as he shook and shot come into the tight dark folds of Bruce's body—once, twice—shit he was not stopping. It was the sight of Bruce's come on his own fingers, Bruce's open-mouthed panting as he gentled himself through his own orgasm. 

"Oh God," he whimpered, turning his head aside, shutting his eyes against the white-hot curl of pleasure, his hips moving apparently of their own accord as his balls emptied.

"Argh, enough, _off_ ," Bruce said with a thrust of his knee, and Clark was out before he was fully ready, still shaking. A last long tendril of come trailed off his still-pulsing cock as Bruce's body-flip landed him on the mattress. They lay there breathing hard. Clark tried to get his muscles to work, but the ceiling kept spinning. 

"God, that was—fucking amazing," he panted, when he had breath. He rolled halfway over to see Bruce, who was lying there with his eyes closed. There were beads of sweat still rolling off him. Come coated his fingers and belly. He was a wreck. "You could be nicer," he said, and Bruce cracked an eyelid. 

"Excuse me?"

"I said, you could be nicer. There's no law against being polite, in bed."

Both Bruce's eyes were open now. "Polite. You want me to be polite, when there's an eight-inch cock up my ass rearranging my internal organs and doing things to me I frankly did not know were possible. But you think I should be polite." He put a hand on his face, and the bed started shaking. "I'll be goddamned," he said, through his low chuckle. "I really am in bed with Superman." 

Clark rolled over. "Fine. Glad I amuse you. Whatever."

Bruce kept laughing, and Clark hated how much he loved this rarest of sounds, Bruce's laughter. There was never any telling what the man would laugh at, what small ridiculous thing would catch him sideways. "I'm just saying," he tried. "You called me incompetent."

"When. When did I call you incompetent?"

"What? Just now, when you—do you remember nothing that happens during sex?"

Bruce squinted at the ceiling fan like he was considering the question. "Not much, to be honest."

Clark propped on his elbow and studied him. "So. . . just how intense is it, for you?"

"Pretty intense. I mean, I have no basis of comparison, obviously. But sex is, ah. . . it's a problem for me. Controlling those urges, disciplining them. My libido has been an obstacle in my training. I wish it were different."

Clark reached a hesitant finger, and brushed a knuckle against Bruce's sweaty hairline. "Don't say that," he said. He drew the hand back quickly. It wasn't part of their occasional deal, post-coital tenderness—or any tenderness at all, actually—but Bruce's matter-of-fact distaste for his sexual nature wrung his heart. He thought of a nineteen-year-old Bruce, trying desperately to hammer all that passion and power and beauty into the shape he would have it go; he thought of that stern jaw and the tight leash it bespoke. 

"You can do what you want, here with me," he said. "You won't hurt me."

Bruce reached for the water bottle beside the bed, and cast a sidelong glance at him. "I know," he said. "I thought that was the point of this."

"Was it."

Bruce said nothing to that, but drank in silence. "So here's a question," Clark said, after a bit. He took the proffered bottle, and drank some too. "Here's a conversation we've never had."

"Are you a talker, after sex? It's fine if you are, I just hadn't really noticed before."

"Maybe because you passed out, before."

"I do have a tendency to do that, yes." Bruce tucked a pillow behind his head. This was the most time they'd actually spent in a bed. Normally by this point Bruce was casting surreptitious glances about for his pants, but for some reason he was content to lie here today, on the wide bed in Clark's small bedroom. The whole place was too small, really, but he loved the view of the bridge. If he got that raise, he was going to look for a new place, first thing. Nothing too far away. Maybe that building next block over, with the pre-war fireplaces. 

"Yes?" Bruce was looking at him expectantly.

"Sorry. I was just wondering why it is you've never asked me about condoms."

Bruce's eyebrows rose. "Because last I checked, there are no human diseases communicable to you, nor can you transmit any."

"That makes sense. I was really just wondering, that's all. I didn't know if—you know, flying without a net, if that's something you did a lot of."

Bruce finished off the water. He aimed it at the trash can in the corner. Incredibly, he missed. "Wow," said Clark. "You can land a piece of metal in the barrel of a gun at fifty feet, but you can't make the trash can?"

"Those are entirely different skill sets," he said with a scowl. "And the answer to your question is no, Clark, I am not a whore, fuck you very much." Bruce swung his legs up and over, and no no no, he could not be screwing this up, he could not. He lunged for Bruce's wrist and caught it.

"Bruce," he said. "Wait, that wasn't what I—"

"This was a mistake." His voice was hard and flat. Clark didn't let go of his wrist. He was holding him in a grip close enough to human Bruce could have broken free, if he had really wanted. 

"Don't say that." Clark inched up behind him. "Look, I got jealous. I wanted to know things that weren't my business. I wanted to know if you were. . . with anyone else, and I didn't have the guts to ask."

Bruce turned his head. "Why would you ask me that?" He sounded genuinely puzzled.

"Because—because that's the sort of thing normal people would be curious about."

"No, I realize that. I just meant, why would you ask instead of just following me, like I do you?"

Clark released his wrist and just stared at him. "You follow me."

"Of course I do. If there's something I want to know, I make it my business to know it."

"I see."

"I need more water." He watched Bruce get up and pad into the kitchen, rummaging for another bottle of water. He was naked and un-self-conscious and heartstoppingly beautiful. He stood in the middle of the living room and chugged the bottle. Clark could see him from the bedroom. He made his way back to the bedroom and leaned against the doorframe, watching Clark watch him. 

"You're leering," Bruce said.

"That I am." He imagined his mouth on Bruce's cock. He hadn't done that yet. There was a lot they hadn't done yet. 

"My eyes are up here."

"Come lie down again."

"Maybe in a bit. My eyes are here."

"I know—what are you. . ."

"Can you open your eyes, Clark? Open your eyes. You have to open your eyes now."

"I don't—I'm not. . ."

"Come on, open up. Open up so I can beat the hell out of you. It's going to look bad if I do that while you're still lying down."

Bruce was still leaning against the doorframe, holding the water bottle and looking at him critically. He put the bottle down and sat back down on the bed. "That was incredibly stupid," he said, in a different tone of voice. "What you did. Not to mention brilliant, and brave, and foolhardy."

There was a hand on the side of his face. "But now you have to come back to me, sweetheart. "

He gasped and swallowed air, and swam upward into light.


	14. The Still Waters

"Christ, it is _cold_ out there!" Dick slammed the terrace doors behind him so hard they rattled, and Alfred shot a disapproving glare at the leaves swirling in. "Sorry, Alfred, I'll clean it. But Jesus Eff, do you have any idea how cold it is out there? Polar vortex, my ass. It's like the wind-swept sphincter of Satan out there."

"Dick," Clark said, with an arch of his brows in Damian's direction. 

"Sorry, sorry. I'm trying to be better about my language, I promise. But Jes—Geez Louise, it's brisk outside." He leaned over top of his little brother for a handful of popcorn, and pulled his hand back with a yelp.

"Ow! You little—Did you just stab me with a needle?!"

"The popcorn is for stringing on the tree, Grayson," Damian replied equably. "And you shouldn't curse in front of the Christmas tree."

"Uh huh," Dick said, casting a baleful glance at the fourteen-footer dominating the downstairs great room. "It's a tree, Baby Bird, not a household god. And excuse me, the only reason you get away with cursing is because you swear in Arabic." 

Tim tossed a box of ornament hangers at Dick. "Come on, get to work. We've got a tree to decorate, and Damian and I have been working on garland all day, so guess what, that's you."

"Right," Dick said. "Well, much as I'd love to, I'm supposed to be somewhere at seven and I—"

"He means his date with Batgirl," Damian said.

"Which I canceled for you," Tim said.

"Excuse me?"

"She said she'd love to change your date to a family tree-trimming party at the Manor. Hugs and kisses and. . . what does this symbol mean?" Tim held up his phone screen and Dick launched himself across the room.

"You're barbarians, all of you!" Damian shouted, trying to tug the garland out of their way. Clark used the distraction to grab himself a handful of popcorn, and headed out the terrace doors, shutting the doors on the laughter and shouts and bright lights of the room behind him, and ignoring Alfred's plea for help.

The wind whipped in off the bay brutally, slicing through clothes and flesh, but it didn't register with Clark. He had a feeling he knew where he would find Bruce, too, so he braced his shoulders against the wind and headed out to the hillock on the west side of the house, behind the scrim of trees. There was just enough daylight left to make out the path as he climbed it, and the dark iron gate at the top of the hill.

* * *

Bruce watched him approach from his seat on the bench. He had been expecting Clark to seek him out all afternoon, and was surprised it had taken him this long, the truth was. Probably more of Clark and his belief in space, which Bruce liked to imagine was a geographical failing: bred in the wide open spaces of the Midwest, Clark continually assumed that humans required that same space around them to survive. But you couldn't be born in Gotham and not know the darker truth that love was the erasure of space, the collapse of all boundaries. Not unlike the oldest cemeteries in Gotham, where families were stacked four- and five-deep in a single grave.

"I can't explain it," Leslie had said, when they had gone over his lab results today. At six months out, she had said they would know for sure. He had known at six weeks. He had known at six days. He had known, in fact, at six hours, when Clark was still comatose, surfacing to consciousness only occasionally, and only to be racked by terrible pain Leslie had not known how to locate, much less stop. 

"You have to do something," he had growled at her. He couldn't count the days he had sat by Clark's bed in the Watchtower medical bay, while Clark was still and unresponsive, except for the far worse times when he wasn't.

"I have no idea what to do," she had said. "I couldn't begin to explain his physiology, any more than you could. I have no guarantee that any drug I tried to administer would be effective, and the very real possibility is that I will hurt him even worse."

"Just a basic narcotic—"

"Could kill him. Are you willing to take that chance?"

He had gripped the bedrails. "If you think I am going to sit here and watch him suffer—"

"You mean, like he did for you?"

That had silenced him. He was not as brave as Clark, or as strong as Clark, or as good as Clark, and never would be, but what Clark had managed for his sake he could damn well manage for Clark's. And so he had sat, and waited, and called him back from wherever he was, with words Clark assuredly never heard. 

Today, in her office, Leslie had taken off her glasses and folded her hands and sat in silence, looking at his lap reports for a long time. "I can't explain it," she had finally said. "I won't ever be able to. But I think I understand part of the science behind it—or at least, what a Kryptonian physician might have called science. To us, it's at best magic."

He had been standing at the window of her office, watching the winter wind play havoc with the flagpoles on the plaza. "'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,'" he had murmured. "Clarke's Law," he said, at her look. 

"Well, yes. That's as good a summary as any. I think Clark managed to convince his body that yours was an extension of his, and so your body absorbed his blood and its cancer-fighting abilities, through that skin-to-skin contact. It's not. . . I can't prove any of this, and Clark has not exactly been forthcoming in talking about it, but my guess is, his cells read your body as part of his, because of that contact. Or partly because of that contact."

He had nodded. None of that was new information. He had known it as soon as he had regained consciousness that day in the hospital, because he had sensed it in his body. His body, and yet. . . more than his. 

"We'll continue to monitor you for any recurrence," she said, watching him.

"You won't have to. There won't be any recurrence."

She didn't remark on his confidence, or ask him its source. She just gave him a shrewd look. "So," she said. "Have you noticed any other physiological changes?"

He flicked aside the corner of her blinds and considered. What could he say? _Multiple orgasms now. You have no idea how good that feels. Or more probably, being a woman, you do_. He could say, _From time to time I have to be careful when I open a door, because once or twice now I have crumbled a doorknob to powder_. It was odd, the way things like that would happen in odd bursts. Never consistently, but enough that he calculated a bit more carefully, now, when throwing a punch. 

Residual after-effects. They would fade, after a while. Possibly. If they didn't grow.

"Nothing of note," he said. Maybe he would be part Kryptonian until the day he died. Maybe the day he died would be an abnormally long time from today. Maybe it wouldn't. 

She was chewing on the end of her glasses and studying him. "There's another one of Clarke's laws," she said. "Now that you've made me think of it. Something about the limits of the possible."

"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is by venturing a little way past them into the impossible," he said.

"Yes. That one. I think, to be perfectly honest, that's as good a scientific, medical explanation I can give you for why Clark's blood transfusion worked, and in the way that it worked."

He had smiled, and shaken her hand, and she had shaken his, and then she had—most unexpectedly—pulled him into a hug, which had startled but not displeased him, despite his normal feelings about unexpected touch. She had stood on her tiptoes to hug him. It had struck him that she was exactly his mother's age. 

Clark was opening the little iron gate of the family plot and clicking it behind him. He sat on the bench beside Bruce, silently. Together they looked at the cluster of stones and monuments, and the two simple ones in the center: _Thomas Wayne, Beloved Husband and Father_ , next to _Martha Wayne, Beloved Wife and Mother_. The groundskeeper had been here recently, clearing the last of the late fall leaves, tidying, trimming back vines. It was odd, but no amount of time relieved the starkness of those two central stones: no lichen grew on them, no vines entwined about them. As stark and bare as they had looked the day they were set up, though maybe a little darker. 

"I no longer think he was a coward," Bruce said. 

"I'm glad," Clark said. It was the sort of inane remark Clark was prone to making. 

"It isn't for the reason you're thinking."

"I wasn't thinking any reason."

"You're thinking it's because I've lived through a terminal illness myself now, so I'm full of renewed understanding for the hard choices people face when they look at their own suffering and mortality."

"All right," Clark said.

"But that's not it. It's not because I now understand what he felt."

"Why then?"

Bruce sighed. "I no longer think he was a coward, because I don't think he wanted to kill himself to avoid pain and suffering. I think, as a doctor, he had seen what a prolonged death can do to a family. I think it was our pain and suffering he was trying to avoid. In his head, a sudden death was the best way to do that."

Clark gave a long exhale, the sort that meant he was thinking about what you had said and did not necessarily agree with it, but was not going to point it out. It was annoying in the extreme. "I didn't think about that part," Bruce continued. "When I was considering whether to fight or not, and how hard to fight. Tim was right, insofar as that goes. I did only think about myself. I didn't think what it would mean to those around me, to watch me die."

Clark leaned forward, still studying those two headstones. "Well," he said. "You were wrong about something else, too."

Bruce shifted in irritation. "Please enlighten me."

"You said, that night, that your mother should have prayed to be delivered from ever meeting your father."

"Did I."

"Yes, you did. And I think you were wrong about that, too. I don't think she would have prayed that. People we love, they screw up. They get things wrong, even big things. I think she forgave him. Has forgiven him. Even that night in the alley, I don't think she would have prayed that."

There was some retort to that, but Bruce couldn't find it, because his throat closed momentarily. He was seeing her, and her blank blood-slicked eyes, the way they didn't move when he shook her and screamed her name. There was a hand on his knee, a firm warm pressure. 

"It's getting cold out," Clark observed. "And you didn't bring a jacket."

"I'm not cold."

"I know that. You know that. But unless you start wearing a jacket when it's sixteen degrees out, other people are going to know that, too. Bruce. You've got to cover a little better than that."

"It isn't all the time. I still feel temperature most of the time. No one will notice anyway."

"Sure they won't. That's a pretty unobservant family you've got yourself there, I'm sure they won't notice a thing." 

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you. It just makes you sound petulant."

"No it doesn't," Clark said with a smile. "Besides, you love the sound of my voice, as I recall."

"We're going to have a talk," Bruce said, "about taking things I say during sex too literally." He rose. The wind had indeed become vicious in the last half hour, and he was starting to feel the prickle of chill on his arms. He wondered if that was what it felt like for Clark—awareness, but not discomfort. He stood and faced Clark. "I have something to say," he said.

"All right." Clark looked wary. 

"I never thanked you."

Now he just looked chagrined. "Bruce. Don't be ridiculous."

"Just listen to me. I'm not thanking you for what you probably think I'm thanking you for. I'm not thanking you for saving my life, because that was a mess. You waited too long, you terrified everyone, you caused major damage to Gotham General's ICU, and you came just as close to killing both of us as saving me. That was a disaster, from first to last."

"Oh," Clark said. "Well, you're welcome, then."

"What did I tell you about sarcasm. I told you, I'm not thanking you for that. I'm thanking you for all the rest of it. For the harder part of it. For everything that came before then."

"Bruce. It's what you would have done for me."

He turned and looked at the headstones. "Is it," he said. "I'm not so sure. I'm not sure how brave I am, because I haven't had to watch you die." 

Clark's arms looped around him from behind, and they stood there, looking at those graves together. He could feel the warmth of Clark's back, the firm solidity of it. "Come inside," Clark said. "They're trimming the tree."

They walked back to the house slowly, hand in hand, and by common consent did not let go of each other's hands until they reached the terrace.

* * *

That night, Clark stirred from sleep for no particular reason, and rolled over, pulling the blankets closer around them both. Bruce was taking up three-quarters of the bed, as usual. The fire in the fireplace was down to its last embers, and the room was streaked with vermilions and warm shadows. 

He let the last wisps of his dream float away from him—something about a cruise ship, and Bruce was there but then he wasn't, and so was his second-grade teacher. It was funny, the way dreams slipped away from you on waking.

He hadn't told Bruce about any of it, what he had seen and felt while he had been. . . he wasn't even sure what the word was. Unconscious, yes, but it wasn't like any loss of consciousness he had ever experienced. They weren't dreams, because none of it had floated away from him afterward. He had wandered through memories, through visions of the future, through his own darkest fears. Separating one from the other had not been easy, and for hours—days, really—after he had awakened, he was still sorting out which was which, and wondering which reality he had fallen into now. 

He couldn't forget any of it. He never would. Along with the memories and the nightmares, had those been glimpses of his future? Or had that just been his imagination? That part, especially, had felt too real for imagination, too specific for hallucination. He had wandered into a dream world, and it colored everything he saw now. And if it was his future. . .

Well, he would know soon enough. If he was lucky. If the two of them managed not to get themselves killed before then, or the world managed not to end. 

_Shhhh, that's too loud_ , said a laughing voice, and another voice, a higher, female one, also laughing. There was nothing louder than people trying to be quiet in a still house of sleeping people. There were many times he would give anything to be able to turn off his superhearing, but overhearing awkward sex noises was top of that list.

_Oh come on, no one can hear us._

_Are you kidding? Clark is upstairs._

_What? He went home hours ago, it's like two in the morning._

_Babs. I know you're not that stupid._

_What do you—oh. OH._

There were more noises, shuffling and rustling, the sound of zippers and small gasps and soft moans. Clark tried not to listen, but it was extraordinarily hard not to hear things when you had started listening. He pressed a pillow in front of his face. And then:

_Really?_

_Really what?_

_Bruce. . . and Clark?_

_This is a surprise?_

_No, I didn't mean that, but. . . okay, yeah, I guess I meant that._

More noises Clark tried desperately to ignore, and Dick's voice groaning. 

_Baby. . . baby, you are so beautiful._

_That's really hot._

_Yeah?_ Clark could hear the grin in Dick's voice. _Well, you just wait, gorgeous._

A low, throaty laugh. _No, you goof, I meant the two of them._

Dick's groan this time was definitely not a sex noise. Clark tried not to laugh. Tossing the pillow aside, he got up and poked at the fire, throwing on another log, just to have something to mask the noises from the cave. Bruce would hit the roof if he knew Dick and Barbara were using the cave as a sex den, but then again, maybe he wouldn't be that surprised. Bruce was shockingly matter-of-fact about sex, in a way that still took him aback. 

He twiddled the poker, still crouched in front of the fire and staring at its slowly resurrecting glow. Focused on the fainter noises elsewhere in the house, he missed the ones beside him, and startled at Bruce's voice.

"E'rthing a'righ?"

He smiled. Sleepy Bruce was his favorite Bruce. He slid back into the bed and warmed himself against Bruce's long sleep-soft body. A hand pulled his arm in close, and he notched against Bruce's backside. He kissed the scarred shoulder nearest him.

"Mm."

"Are you warning me off or encouraging me?"

"Mm?"

"I'm asking because when you're asleep like this, your noise for let's-have-sex is the same as your noise for I'll-tear-off-your-wrist-if-you-touch-me."

"Mmmm."

"I see. You make an interesting point."

He felt the small huff of amusement in Bruce's back. "What are you doing awake," rumbled the sleep-husk. 

He knit his arms tighter around Bruce. "Just thinking."

"Mm."

"Hey Bruce."

"mmM."

"Earlier this year you asked me something I said no to."

"Mm."

"Do you remember what I'm talking about?"

A long sigh, and Bruce shifted in his arms. "Clark. It's all right. Not everybody's into that sort of thing. I'm sorry I brought it up. I was kidding about the nipple tassels, mostly."

Clark swatted at his head. "You're a jerk."

"You woke me up."

"Yeah. I know. Sorry." He re-settled the dark head under his chin, and firmed his hold. "Go back to sleep, baby."

But Bruce didn't. He could feel that he didn't. They lay curled in silence, listening to the renewed crackle of the fire. Dick and Barbara had gone thankfully silent, down below; the house held only the snores of Damian's overgrown elephant of a dog and the tick of the downstairs clocks. 

"I remember," Bruce said, after a long time.

Clark nuzzled into the back of his neck and the small curl of sweat-locks there. "Well," he whispered. "I was just thinking. Maybe if you were to ask me that question again, I might have a different answer."

"What makes you think I would ask it again? Generally speaking, people take 'no' for an answer the first time around."

"I didn't. . . Bruce, I didn't mean it like that. I didn't really mean no."

A small pause. "It felt like no."

"But it wasn't no. Not really."

"I remember. It was 'I wouldn't mind.'"

Clark winced. "You make it sound worse than it was."

Bruce rolled over and raised his head, fixing Clark with a bleary blue eye. "I'm not asking you again."

"Okay," he said.

"Next time, you can ask me."

"Oh," Clark said. "Okay."

"But it needs to be good."

"I can do good."

" _Really_ good."

"I can definitely do that."

Bruce made a noise somewhere near a harumph and curled back up in the covers, his back to Clark. He didn't tug the covers tight, though, so Clark took that as his sign he was still allowed to cuddle, and tucked himself around Bruce again. His cock was stiffening, wedged against the naked crack of Bruce's ass like this. It felt good, this slow languid hardening. He knew Bruce could feel it too. 

Bruce's hand reached around, and fingers dug into Clark's hip, pushing him against Bruce more firmly. He was now completely hard, and working on keeping his breathing slow. He could come just like this, just from small rubbing motions against Bruce's ass, and frequently had. His body's rhythms were different from Bruce's—a faster rocket to full arousal, a faster need for climax, followed by an aching need for more, with the time in between slowly lengthening. Bruce's body was a bit more like his now, in the multiple orgasms, but he was still much more of a hair-trigger when it came to release.

Bruce had started just the smallest of rubbing motions against him, just a small backward flex that dragged on Clark's cock. It felt so good, to slide in between those perfect globes of ass. "I'm gonna come," Clark gasped. "Christ, I'm gonna come."

"Already?"

"Please—"

Bruce pushed back against him harder, moving faster, and Clark dug fingers into that gorgeous hip, and shuddered. He was making a mess of Bruce's beautiful ass. Bruce's grip became a gentle stroking. He rested his forehead against Bruce's head and stilled his breathing. He moved his hand around to Bruce's cock—half-hard already. 

"You want?" 

"Nn. Yeah." Bruce shifted onto his back, letting Clark jerk him. He arched and stretched and groaned—all the things Clark loved to watch when Bruce got off. He was rough, the way Bruce liked. 

"Oh—yeah, that's—God—"

"Love to watch you," Clark whispered into his neck. One of Bruce's legs was bent, and he was pushing up with his heel, lifting off the bed a little. He was shaking with it a little, and then there was a guttural groan loud enough to be heard in the hall, and Clark's hand was hot and slicked. "Fuck," Bruce panted. 

He knew they could keep going all night. He was hard again—or more accurately, had never gotten un-hard—and he knew Bruce could come again, if he got enough stimulation. But sometimes, lying here in the valley between the driving peaks of his body's needs, it was pleasant just to rest here, tangled in each other's arms, feeling the pulse of want but not drowning in it. He turned into Bruce's neck and kissed him. His chest felt like it might crack open from love—and from terror, because they had come so close to not having this. Bruce had almost not been here, and sometimes, when he remembered it, he would wake in the night chilled with fear, and he would pull Bruce to him, and their lovemaking would not be slow but fast and desperate, and he would not be able to get close enough.

"Marry me, please marry me," Clark whispered into his neck. 

"Not good enough," Bruce said.

"Oh for God's sake."

"Keep working on it, you'll get there."

"That's—come on. Don't be that way. Is this going to be a thing where I have to ask you every day for a month, until finally I'm crawling across the floor begging you, with a dozen roses in my teeth?"

Bruce sighed, twisted, wiped at himself and Clark with the sheets, and rolled them in a clean section of blanket. He re-settled, plumping his pillow. "Well," he said, with a small arch of brow. "I wouldn't mind."

Clark smiled into the room's long shadows. Vision of his future, mirage, hallucination. . . maybe he would know, soon enough, what it was he had seen. He wrapped both arms around Bruce and drifted toward his dream.


End file.
